Virginity -- Gender & Sexuality Week 8

Ah, virginity. A discourse about sexuality that literally is as old as recorded history. Virginity as a discourse has come a long way since the Virgin Mary, but it still dominates much of our thinking about sex. Virginity is a concern for many young women and men, and the social implications of “being a virgin” versus NOT “being a virgin” are rather severe.

For example, I was once giving a violence prevention workshop to a group of junior high students. After my presentation, a young woman came up to me and told me a story about how she’d had oral and anal sex. She wanted me to confirm for her that she could still consider herself a virgin. She was TERRIFIED by the idea that she was not a virgin, and was even more terrified of what it would mean to other people if she wasn’t a virgin.

In fact, Oprah dedicated an entire episode of her show to discuss tweens who were engaging in various sex acts (oral, anal, other) in order to “keep” their virginities in tact. From a social constructionist perspective, it is fascinating that both the tweens on Oprah and the junior high school student with whom I spoke believed that a certain type of sex, i.e. penile-vaginal intercourse, was the only way to “lose” one’s virginity. This dominant discourse about virginity implies that penile-vaginal sex is THE most important type of sex. This should come as no surprise. After all, how many of us have been exposed to the “baseball diamond” analogy about sex, in which oral sex (& sometimes anal sex) is considered “third base,” while penile-vaginal sex is considered a “home run.” Such discourses about virginity/sex are rather limiting, since sex can be experienced in so many ways, and they are certainly heterosexist in that they clearly suggest that if one does not have penile-vaginal intercourse then one has not “really” experienced sex—or for that matter, has not “lost” their virginity.

In our culture, there are countless discourses that promote the importance of virginity. Many religious discourses promote the notion that virginity until marriage, in particular for a woman, is a measure of purity, a measure of a person’s “quality”. But religion is by far the only location where this dominant discourse is promoted. Our culture is FULL of references to the fact that we (especially women) are supposed to “save” our virginity for someone special—or that at the very least, we are supposed to think about our “first time” having sex as something important. This is not to suggest that our first sexual experience shouldn’t be meaningful, but from a social constructionist perspective, we should question why so many discourses instruct us about the meaning of “losing” our virginity. Part of such questioning might involve asking how someone actually “loses” their virginity in the first place. Loses it? Like losing your car keys? This language (and discourse) implies that virginity is not an idea, but rather that it actually “exists,” that it is “real.” Virginity, apparently, is so real that it is like a material possession, one that can be “lost,” or “stolen.”

Back in September of 2008, a woman who called herself Natalie Dylan, put her virginity up for auction to the highest bidder. When she (and the brothel in Nevada helping her—The Bunny Ranch) began to promote her auction, the media response was remarkable. She was on every news channel for days, and her action prompted countless discussions about women’s empowerment, prostitution, morality, etc.

Below are three links that provide us with powerful examples about the dominant discourses that surround virginity. The first two links are news coverage about Natalie’s auction from CNN and a local Sacramento news channel, in which we are exposed to questions about the “value” of virginity, and many examples of people internalizing discourses about virginity. Then there is the last link, which is an op-ed written by Natalie Dylan herself. In it, she explains her rationale for auctioning her virginity by using several alternative discourses to challenge the criticism she was receiving.

Needless to say, there are COUNTLESS interpretations we can create from all of the discourses about virginity, but regardless of the meanings you see, there can be little doubt that virginity as a discourse has a dramatic impact on our conceptualizations about sex, and our own identities.

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-1547743588883333195#docid=6056890354786360040

http://www.cnn.com/2009/LIVING/01/22/virginity.value/index.html

http://www.alternet.org/sex/123185/why_i%27m_selling_my_virginity/