Virginity

HisLittleHazelnut · May 23, 2008

Do you believe that virginity is merely physical? Or is it moral? To you, is virginity lost when a virgin is raped? Or can they go on considering themselves to be virgins because they have not willingly given themselves away to anyone yet?

Eudaimonist · May 23, 2008

Revenwyn said:
Do you believe that virginity is merely physical? Or is it moral? To you, is virginity lost when a virgin is raped? Or can they go on considering themselves to be virgins because they have not willingly given themselves away to anyone yet?

I'd say that virginity is psychological. When sexual intercourse is no longer a mystery, but has been experienced at least once, then one is no longer a virgin.

Yes, someone can lose their virginity due to rape. Rape is a terrible evil, but I don't think that the loss of virginity is the loss of something precious, and so that loss by itself is no tragedy. I find virginity-worship rather odd.

eudaimonia,

Mark

Controverse · May 23, 2008

I believe it is physical as well as moral.

I would think of a rape victim as still a virgin even if she lost her virginity to a rapist. And given her experience, she will likely stay that way for long.

When they willingly give it away, in my mind they've lost their virginity. That's my opinion.

PassionFruit · May 23, 2008

Why does society think of virginity in terms of "giving or taking something away?"

I believe it's more psychological than physical, and then there are issues of chastity involved.

cantata · May 23, 2008

Revenwyn said:
Do you believe that virginity is merely physical? Or is it moral? To you, is virginity lost when a virgin is raped? Or can they go on considering themselves to be virgins because they have not willingly given themselves away to anyone yet?

It's not "merely" physical - it's not physical at all.

Oh wait! It's not moral either.

It's a matter of personal definition, and incidentally, I think the concept is virtually worthless anyway.

stan1980 · May 23, 2008

I can honestly say that virginity meant virtually nothing to me. It just meant that I hadn't had sex with a woman yet. I was in a bit of a rush to get it out the way, just so that I could say I'd done it, but unfortunately the girl I lost it to was a bit of a horror, and I didn't hear the end of it from my school mates for at least a year. *Ah.. those were the days*

KET20 · May 23, 2008

Revenwyn said:
Do you believe that virginity is merely physical? Or is it moral? To you, is virginity lost when a virgin is raped? Or can they go on considering themselves to be virgins because they have not willingly given themselves away to anyone yet?

You know, I've never considered it much. Like a few others have already said, being a virgin just meant I hadn't had sex yet. I suppose if I had been raped before I "lost my virginity" I would still have thought of myself as a virgin because it was not consensual, just as I would not count a rapist as one of the men I've slept with if I were raped now. Staying a virgin for a prescribed period of time (till marriage or whatever) was never among my chief concerns, or my concerns at all really. I agree with one of the previous posters: virginity-worship is weird to me!

SallyNow · May 23, 2008

cantata said:
It's not "merely" physical - it's not physical at all.

Oh wait! It's not moral either.

It's a matter of personal definition, and incidentally, I think the concept is virtually worthless anyway.

For you it might be worthless, but for others, well, they have different outlooks. I'm not saying one is right and the other wrong, but there are differing outlooks.

To some, keeping sex confined to loving, caring, respectful, stable, long-term relationships is important because of the intimacy involved. It's not about worshipping the lack of act, but about cherishing it when one meets the person they trust enough to be totally emotionally and physically naked with.

Of course, someone who has sex with lots of different lovers can also cherish the act. I'm not trying to make a judgement here, just showing two sides of the story (and there are dozens of sides, I'm not even being thourough about it!)

Rape is traumatic regardless of whether one's virginity is lost or not. It really doesn't matter. But if the survivor is a person who does think sex is something for committed, long-term relationships, the last thing they need to be told is that their beliefs are wrong or that it doesn't matter.

I personally think that losing one's virginity has to be a concious act set forth with that goal in mind. So, if a virgin is raped, they can still consider themselves a virgin afterwards if it is meaningful to them.

On a complete tangent...

I abhor societies who "honor" kill - cold bloodedly murder - young women who have been raped, because they are no longer "pure". A) why must they be pure and B) they did not make a decision to be raped, it was forced upon them.

LittleNipper · May 23, 2008

cantata said:
It's not "merely" physical - it's not physical at all.

Oh wait! It's not moral either.

It's a matter of personal definition, and incidentally, I think the concept is virtually worthless anyway.

Virtue is rare and valuable. Perhaps you've simply never witnessed it.

cantata · May 23, 2008

LittleNipper said:
Virtue is rare and valuable. Perhaps you've simply never witnessed it.

What on earth has that to do with anything?

Eudaimonist · May 23, 2008

LittleNipper said:
Virtue is rare and valuable. Perhaps you've simply never witnessed it.

Virtue is rare and valuable, and I have witnessed it.

What does virtue have to do with virginity?

eudaimonia,

Mark

yasic · May 23, 2008

It really depends on your definition of the word 'virgin'

I personally accept that a word means what the majority of people around me take it to mean, after all language is just a means of communication. Around where I live, 'virgin' means a person who has not yet had sex (vaginal or anal) so someone who was raped is no longer a virgin.

If somewhere else 'virgin' means 'a person who has willingly had sex with another person' then no, in that area of the world you did not lose your virginity.

cantata · May 23, 2008

yasic said:
It really depends on your definition of the word 'virgin'

I personally accept that a word means what the majority of people around me take it to mean, after all language is just a means of communication. Around where I live, 'virgin' means a person who has not yet had sex (vaginal or anal) so someone who was raped is no longer a virgin.

If somewhere else 'virgin' means 'a person who has willingly had sex with another person' then no, in that area of the world you did not lose your virginity.

That's a very straight-people-specific definition, surely.

Are lesbians perpetual virgins? I don't think so.

Bombila · May 23, 2008

Through a lot of our history, virginity was something that had to be physically proved, and meant strictly that a woman's hymen had not been broken - an ignorant definition, since hymens can be almost absent, or torn through vigorous activity, or through accident. Many chickens and doves were sacrificed in secret to redden those wedding night sheets for the morning display.

All to soothe the anxieties of landed men, unable in those days to know if a child was really their heir, or a cuckoo in the nest, unless they had eyes on their woman from the breaking of her hymen and ever after.

yasic · May 23, 2008

cantata said:
That's a very straight-people-specific definition, surely.

Are lesbians perpetual virgins? I don't think so.

Well its a straight-or-male-homosexual-specific definition actually.

There is a lot of contention, at least from what I hear, to if lesbians are virgins or not. The arguments go both ways.

The one side is that they are doing the most sexual intimate act (within normal bounds)

The other side complains that if a woman does this act to a second woman, then this second woman is no longer a virgin, while if a man does the same act to the second woman, then the second woman remains a virgin, and this does not add up.

Btw, I am sorry about referring to everything here as 'specific act' instead of naming it, but I fear that too much specifics is not appropriate here.

Eudaimonist · May 23, 2008

cantata said:
Are lesbians perpetual virgins? I don't think so.

Why wouldn't they be? What acts would cancel virginity for a lesbian, in your view?

eudaimonia,

Mark

Eudaimonist · May 23, 2008

yasic said:
The other side complains that if a woman does this act to a second woman, then this second woman is no longer a virgin, while if a man does the same act to the second woman, then the second woman remains a virgin, and this does not add up.

It doesn't add up if virginity is merely physical.

However, if it is psychological, then virginity may apply differently to people of differing sexual orientations.

eudaimonia,

Mark

yasic · May 23, 2008

Eudaimonist said:
It doesn't add up if virginity is merely physical.

However, if it is psychological, then virginity may apply differently to people of differing sexual orientations.

eudaimonia,

Mark

We were specifically talking about the 'virgin' definition of the area in which I personally live, where it is taken to mean physical rather than psychological. However sex is not always black and white as most people imagine so even this has its share of confusion and blurred lines.

Bombila · May 23, 2008

I'm sure to some people, keeping or losing virginity has psychological or emotional meaning.

But physically it isn't usually very notable. Losing my virginity (at the advanced age of twenty) was pretty much a casual incident, didn't even improve my sex life, really.

wanderingone · May 23, 2008

Revenwyn said:
Do you believe that virginity is merely physical? Or is it moral? To you, is virginity lost when a virgin is raped? Or can they go on considering themselves to be virgins because they have not willingly given themselves away to anyone yet?

I'll look at it this way... any person who considers the rapist who attacked their partner to be in some way a sexual partner is not someone who I would choose to be with.

I met women in a group I went to after I was assaulted who had husbands who said they were struggling to get past the image of their wives "with another man" Now.. there was a woman with a husband who said he was struggling with the image of his wife being ATTACKED and he not having been there to help her.. of feeling useless.. I GET that.. although it's undeserved guilt, I don't get the mentality of a man who thinks of his wife getting assaulted and thinks of her as being "with" another man.

If someone considers virginity to be something they need to save until marriage or some specific point I think it's important for them to know that being physically assaulted is not the same as having sex.

The person who thinks the "mystery" is over .. i don't even know what to say to that. Sex should not be a mystery, and being raped is NOTHING like having sex you WANT to have.

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