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:
- 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.
- I don’t shoot up and I’m not worried about blood transfusions, so gonorrhea, chlamydia, HPV, AIDS, etc, have nothing over me.
- 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).
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.
- I get to write The Virgin Diaries!
@emandlo, I (because I can only speak for myself) am not criticizing Katherine. She is extremely brave and I admire her for it. I am upset at the society in general. There is so much friction and debate in the society in general regarding (generally) a woman’s virginity. And I have read so much backlash on this site for female virgins, which I have to say represents what society thinks of women and their sexuality. Just because a woman chooses to not be sexually active, does not mean she is lesser than a woman who does or a goddess to be idolized. I am 24 and I have never been in love and I have chosen not to sleep with a guy just because this is or was the normal age to do it. Why should I feel embarrassed for that? I don’t owe anything to anyone. No, I don’t plan on waiting for marriage either but seems like most people are fixated with a hymen rather than the experience. The larger experience of life, love and knowing who you are.
In Katherine’s defense, and as we’ve mentioned at the beginning of this post, she’s got her Top 10 Cons of Virginity coming tomorrow, so before y’all tar and feather her for highlighting what she feels are positives FOR HER (and her alone), consider for a moment that she also is self-aware enough to realize (and brave enough to share) the negatives that affect her, too — tune in tomorrow for those. And please remember, this is a personal confession, not advice.
I’m also a virgin and I am appalled by #6!
I don’t think my virginity (or yours or anyone else’s) should be ANYONE’s business, including a parent’s, especially if you have reached the age of majority. It should never be a topic of discussion. To the OP, are you comfortable that your mom discusses your hymen with your family and her friends? Trust me, it wouldn’t be the same if you were a guy – so yes, I feel its sexist.
I don’t understand people’s obsession with other people’s virginity and sometimes, the lack thereof. Being a virgin is not a good or bad thing, its a person’s PERSONAL life. Western culture is so obsessed with privacy yet they don’t mind peeping into other people’s privates. Yes, it is a big topic out there, especially if you are a young adult!
Let me add my voice to the chorus: not being sexually active will NOT save you from heartbreak, and saying so seems just heartbreakingly young. You can still get every bit as attached to someone without having been sexual with them, and you can still get very hurt. And yes, you can sleep with someone without getting attached to them.
And #6? Your mom? Really?
Your first time can be a disappointment even with someone you love, and who loves you. Sex takes practice and many women have to learn how to have an orgasm during partnered sex. So what?
I am with you on the fear of pregnancy, but that, too, can be nearly eliminated by the consistent use of birth control.
^ You’re not the only one.
But since I’ve got my own equal and opposite smug tone, who am I to judge? 🙂
Am I the only one seeing a smug tone to this article?
Probably not intentional but to me it kinda reads that way?
As a 29 year old virgin I’m going to back you up on #9. I think it’s crazy, but my friends are always coming to me for advice on relationship and sex issues.
Although #6 – icky.
Went for lunch and I’m back!
#5 Good for you
#6 I find this a bit creepy… I personally believe your sex life, or lack thereof, is a private matter and your family should have no say on it.
And: do you talk to your mom about how you “enjoy masturbation, porn, and the occasional dirty joke”? If not, why? And why do you treat (non-)virginity differently?
#7 As others said, heartbreak has nothing to do with sex. Being heartbroken after having sex with someone who doesn’t actually care for you, as you say, would only be a proof of poor judgment: if you are in love, and only want to have sex with a guy if he cares for you, wouldn’t you wait until you’re sure he does to take the leap? Again, trust your judgment. You’re at Princeton, so I’m assuming you’re smart. I see self-esteem issues here. You don’t seem to trust yourself.
#8 Again, as others said, you are not any more objective than anyone else on this topic. You come with your own biases. I’d add that the most ignorant people also tend to be the more prejudiced. The “I fear what I do not know/understand, and thus reject it” syndrome.
About the “helping friends”: I think the more aspects you know to a problem, the better you are armed to solve it. Being a virgin, you cannot always fully understand the scope of your friends’ problems.
#9 I agree with that, and I agree with not underestimating the risks that come with sex.
#10 Again, good for you. Does your mom read it?
All in all… I think some of these arguments are full of crap. It’s not necessarily that it’s a bad idea to remain a virgin… but maybe trying to write a top 10 good reasons for it was. Maybe there aren’t 10 good reasons to do it, or maybe just not the ones you wrote. I think this post doesn’t serve your cause at all. And if these are your real reasons, I think time has come to question them. And start believing in yourself.
#1 true
#2 true
#3 This almost sounds ironical, you seem to know that you are delusional… What is the point of this?! Postponing it won’t change the value of the actual experience. You sound like those people who are so afraid of failure that they never try anything.
#4 In college or in “real life”, you just need to choose a worthy partner. Sex, be it casual or committed, is something BOTH people choose to have together. You can’t hold a selfish partner responsible if you end up disappointed. Don’t you trust yourself with the ability to distingush between good and bad potential mates?
(coming back with the rest soon)
I think that no matter what stage you are in your sexual life you should be able to be proud of your decisions and how they got you to the place that you are. If you are happy where you are and with the choices you have made, then more power to you, as long as you aren’t shaming someone else for having a different path in life.
Heartbreak has little to nothing to do with sex. If your heart is break proof it’s because you’ve never been in love, not because you’ve never shared your body with someone else.
I’m not sure I quite like #6…”bragging” about your daughter being a virgin just seems a little weird. Does that make you better than someone who isn’t? Is that why it’s okay to brag about it?
It rocks that you’re able to make a firm decision and stick to your beliefs about it without being influenced by pressure. That genuinely is fantastic and rare, and I hope you are able to take pride in it. I feel similar pride about my decision to have sex despite a heap of parental and religious pressure against it. The important thing, I think, is the ability to make your own choice and decide what works for you, regardless of what others want for you.
That said, I’d like to raise some questions about some of your points.
4. This can be easily solved just by picking the right partner with the right attitude. I’m in college, and I, too, eschew sex with anyone who has no interest in making it a satisfying and mutually positive experience. Having found a boyfriend who doesn’t suck (oho, innuendo!), though, it’s never really been an issue. Is it more the idea of casual sex that is unappealing to you at the moment, or is committed sex equally off the menu?
6. What will you do if your opinion starts to shift and you eventually decide to have sex? Is it going to negatively affect your relationship with her? Would you tell her, or would you feel like it would diminish her respect for you or appreciation for you as a daughter? My mother is quite religious, and expected me to be a virgin til marriage – and thought very well of me for as long as she believed I shared that goal. When I eventually realised the celibate route wasn’t for me, though, I realised just how much it bothered me that she thought I was a “better” daughter for being a virgin, and a more morally wayward one for having sex.
7. Surely you can be heartbroken without sex ever coming into it. You can be dating someone who breaks your heart without ever having gotten past the makeouts stage – isn’t heartbreak more tied to the loss or breaking of emotional than physical intimacy?
^Yeah, nobody has an objective perspective on sex and relationships.
#6… oh man… the idea of my mom proclaiming her pride in my virginity from the rooftops… I’d change my identity and start a new life in Mexico.
It’s cool that you and your mom are close to talk enough about these things, but is that really a “pro” of virginity!?
I won’t comment on the whole ideology behind this.
I’ll just say that I completely disagree with #9 “Being a virgin gives me the objective perspective on sex and relationships”.
Neither you, nor non-virgin girls can be objective on those subjects. It is in our human nature to be biased.
However, being a virgin makes you less well informed, and thus, less competent to discuss those subjects, I think.