11/4/10
The Virgin Diaries: The Top 10 Pros of Virginity

Our contributor Katherine Chen, once an English major at Princeton University (check out her personal site here), penned a series of confessions for EMandLO.com collectively called “The Virgin Diaries.” Here’s her eighth installment. Her ninth is Top 10 Cons of Virginity:

  1. If my period skips a month, it’s a cause for celebration, not despair. Living without the fear of becoming pregnant from my choices is extremely liberating.
  2. I don’t shoot up and I’m not worried about blood transfusions, so gonorrhea, chlamydia, HPV, AIDS, etc, have nothing over me.
  3. I can still imagine my first time being a mind-blowing sexual encounter (replete with orgasms and possibly even female ejaculation) rather than knowing it was a disappointment (like many of my non-virgin friends).
  4. From what I’ve gathered, college sex is not the most satisfying — with women’s orgasms and even pleasure not high on the list of many a male co-ed.
  5. By this point, I’m pretty much immune to any potential sexual peer pressure, and won’t easily give into doing anything I’m uncomfortable with.
  6. It makes my mom happy and helps keep the peace between us. She enjoys having bragging rights about her “virginal daughter,” and never fails to bring it up with family and friends.
  7. My heart is break-proof right now. I haven’t placed myself in a position of emotional risk by having sex with a man I might not realize doesn’t actually care for me.
  8. Being a virgin gives me the objective, outsider perspective on sex and relationships, which is invaluable when it comes to helping friends sort out their personal issues.
  9. You can be sexual without having partner sex (and suffering all its inherent risks). Just because I’m a virgin doesn’t mean I blush at the thought of sex or wear white on a daily basis. Believe it or not, I enjoy masturbation, porn, and the occasional dirty joke.
  10. I get to write The Virgin Diaries!

Need convincing to CASH-IN your V-Card?
“Top 10 Cons of Being a Virgin” 



41 Comments

  1. Being a virgin guy makes me feel like a demi-god. I feel like i’m unstoppable cos i’ve passed life’s most hardest self-discipline test.

    1. That’s a great way of looking at it! Though we hope you can still manage to keep virginity in perspective. Sanctifying something like this can create undue pressure further down the road…

  2. ^^ Thank you Lily. Thank God someone replied to the virgin-shamers above. I like how slut-shaming is a bad thing in our society, but virgin-shaming is totally appropriate!

    I’m a 24-year old virgin, waiting till marriage, and yes I am proud about it. I also think I’m a better feminist than the self-proclaimed “feminists” who believe there is only one way for a woman to be empowered.

    And I haven’t had my heart broken despite being fond of guys I’ve dated – know why? Because giving them my body and giving them my heart are two linked actions. Yes, it really is that easy to guard your heart. We don’t reach adulthood with our virginity intact because we lack self-control! The best thing this particular life experience has given me is that I truly am immune to peer pressure – like Katherine – and I absolutely cannot be manipulated.

    I am not going to fall head over heels in love because I know what real love is – it is something that builds slowly, after trust and friendship. Men have tried to sweep me off my feet before and failed at it. When love is there, marriage will come, and then my best friend and I will consummate our love together.

    It just shows how ignorant, callous and limited you are if you don’t understand how intricately physical intimacy is linked to love and emotion for people like us. It’s disgraceful, misogynistic (yes, misogynistic) and completely ignorant.

  3. I completely agree with Katherine, and her pros are also most of mine.
    The people talking about heartbreak being removed from physical intimacy don’t seem to realise that – for some of us at least – sex is an expression of a deeper emotional intimacy, and your first time is something precious that deserves an equally deserving recipient. Heartbreak, especially if that person isn’t who they appear to be, is a huge factor of sex, and a reason many people choose to stay virgins for longer than average. Wise move.

  4. This particular thread puts me in mind of Voltaire’s pronouncements, “It is one of the superstitions of the human mind to have imagined that virginity could be a virtue” and “God created sex. Priests created marriage.” To be sure, I’ve got my own issues and can hardly be considered a libertine but I think Monsieur Arouet had some good points.

  5. @me.. do you actually like sex? Do you look at your husband with lust every day? do you dream about him? fantasise about him and leap on him just because the urge takes you? the reason I ask is all the talk about a man being ‘allowed’ sex, like it’s a treat doled out for good behaviour rather than something you do for you because you want him deeply both emotionally and physically.. because, believe me, when you meet that guy (and I really hope your husband is that guy for you) trust me, your previous lovers are not taunting (tainting?) your relationship. I can honestly say that when I’m with my boyfriend (who I live with, and plan on growing old with and raising children with) the guy I actually lost my virginity to (who I was at one time engaged to) could not be further from my mind.. If anything memories of former lovers just confirm how lucky I am now that I didn’t stick with my first :0)

  6. Oh yeah, I also remember a couple of reasons:
    3. Since a woman’s body very connected with her emotion, she will bring memory of the first man who had sex with her FOREVER in her next relationships, even in her marriage. And if the first man is not her husband, it will taunt her relationship with him.
    4. You will have a doubt: Is he really loves me or just loves my body? The question will be across your mind either rarely, occassionally, or always. But it WILL.

  7. Recently I read a book entitled “Lady In Waiting” by Jackie Kendall and Debbie Jones. The authors shared how women should appreciate and set values for themselves. There is one part of the book that impressed me so much. In summary, it was written (more or less) like this:

    “If sex is joyful and brings a lot of good things to us, why does God FORBID us having sex before marriage?

    1. Your body is a holy place where He is dwelling. (Thinking that you have a forbidden sex while God, heavenly angels, saints, and your grandparents are watching from above is really a big turn-off!)

    2. He creates women uniquely and makes a woman’s body very connected with her emotion. A woman cannot have sex without letting her emotion affected and becomes fragile. WHOEVER TOUCHES A WOMAN’S BODY ALSO TOUCHES HER EMOTION. A man is allowed to have sex with a woman IN a marriage because he is obliged and responsible (physically, emotionally, financially, etc.) to the woman as her husband FOREVER (remember, God also FORBIDS divorce). Outside a marriage, the man has no such obligation/responsibility. God wants to prevent a woman from being damaged emotionally by a man who can leave her whenever he wants.

    There are a couple of other reasons, but I forget them. Only the two above I remember, but I hope it helps you to keep your decision. God bless you.

  8. ^ The unhappy and romantically unsucessful friends you mention didn’t blow it by having sex before the wedding. They are just members of the majority – people who marriage hasn’t worked out/isn’t working out for.

    I’m glad things are swell with your husband, but you gotta realize that you are, across the board, the exception. Maybe it’s because of something you and your husband are consciously doing. Probably you’re just extremely lucky. But I doubt it’s the “wait for sex” thing, personally.

  9. I was 30 when I met “Mr Right” – and it was RIGHT. I had been pursued by many various fellows over the years (i was an Industrial Designer in college, so almost all of my classmates were male, and then I taught in an Engineering college – with also a high percentage of male students – but they were just not the right one). We got engaged the 2nd time we met and in 6 months we were married. Now we are coming onto our 5th year of marriage and we are expecting our 4th child. He was 32 when we married, and from a very different background. I am glad that I never gave my body to anyone but my husband. Now, after 5 years, the sex is better and better over time. Since we are married and in a monogamous relationship, we don’t need to fear any diseases, and if we get pregnant (we are very fertile – we conceived twins while on birth control!), we are in a stable situation to have the children. We both like children, and married later, so we would rather have as many as we want now rather than to wait and have a lot of increased risk (in pregnancy and birth etc) later.

    Women – moreso than men – are attached to and have deep connection to that 1st guy that they sleep with. I am glad to have saved that bond for my husband: with whom it is good, right, natural and beautiful to bond deeply with.

    Oddly enough – over the years, I have been a sounding board to many of my friends who went through bad relationships – the worst and most sad, are friends who are engaged, and a few weeks/hours/days before the wedding, decide to just “do it” and then suffer extreme guilt and issues into their marriage due to this (I have several friends who did this and a couple had seriously rough starts into their married life). Marriage needs trust, love and commitment. I’m sorry – but a fellow who just wants my 100 pound body, but is not willing to follow that through – too bad for you!

  10. ^ I assure you that I am not jealous of virgins.

    You highlight a semantic problem that’s been bugging me lately. Things get lost by accident, by mistake, when they’re taken from you…

    I didn’t “lose” my virginity. I DISCARDED it. I wanted it gone. It was like a humiliating tumor to me. As a high school kid I could imagine no greater shame than going off to college a virgin.

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