The Virginity Project

Oranges are not the only fruit...

It’s Thursday and I am back from a place where real oranges grow on real trees. Yes, it’s true. I am such a townie that the sight, no, the apparition, of edible fruit growing on actual trees was an almost continual source of fascination during my trip overseas. Needless to say - and taking the credit crunch into account - I was apprehended at Palma Airport attempting to smuggle six tons of Mallorca’s finest through customs. Enough oranges and lemons to prevent an entire ship’s worth of sailors suffering from scurvy. Not really.

I was a little nervous though and I’ll tell you why. Just before I left for the airport I got an email from the BBC’s World Service asking if I could take part in a global debate about virginity that very night. Now I love doing radio, but not so much in a busy international airport with Spain’s scariest flight attendant telling me that if I don’t get on the bus NOW and board the plane that is just about to leave then it will go without me and I will be forced to purchase another plane ticket. Sadly it seemed, my window of opportunity was too short and I couldn’t make the debate. It’s a shame because it was an interesting subject.

The topic on everyone’s lips was this: ‘Should a woman be a virgin when she gets married?’

Now, just before you check to see you haven’t crash-landed in another century by accident, consider the following figures:

33% (or 2.1 billion people) of the planets population are Christians (I include Catholics, Protestants, Anglican’s, Evangelicals etc in this figure)

21% (or 1.5 billion people) are followers of Islam

16% or 1.1 billion people are Atheist, non-religious or Agnostic

The remaining 30% are a melting pot of Hindu’s, Buddhists, Sikhs, Rastafarians and other assorted religions.

The point I am attempting to make without involving too much maths is that this stuff matters to people. A high proportion of the world’s population do believe that a woman should be a virgin when she gets married. Shocking but true.

Of course, if you asked me the question I would say ‘not in a month of Sundays’. I might consider it if my male partner was prepared to follow suit but that’s not going to happen. Plus, the words ‘shutting' and 'stable door’ and ‘horse has already bolted’ spring to mind. That ship, my dears, and hopefully the one with all the oranges on it, has already sailed. It’s too late and it doesn’t really matter, at least not to me. But to some people it does, and so once again I find myself asking the question ‘why?’

I respect the individual’s choice to do as they please with their bodies. If someone makes a conscious decision to hold onto their virginity until such point they deem appropriate, I am down with that. Sadly ‘doing’ and ‘pleasing’ are not part of the modern vernacular of many religions. Critical choices are being made for people – mainly women it has to be said - on their behalves. How does this work? What is the reason for this? Are we not able to make these decisions for ourselves? In this day and age, I genuinely do not understand why this is happening. Viola Anderson sums up my confusion thus:

 ‘viola anderson June 12, 2008 at 5:14 am

Try to remember a time when the only reliable birth control was total abstinence from sex. It follows then that men would insist that their wives be virgin before the marriage in order to be certain that any child born would be his own. The virginity was not the object – assurance of paternity was.

Nowadays, at least where reliable birth control is available, insisting on virginity (for that reason) is an outdated practice.

However, if the object of requiring the virginity of the bride is to prevent the woman’s comparing her husband’s sexual practices to any other man’s, then it is a whole different matter and is surely an unreasonable requirement.

It is another example of how a man’s fear (in this case, of not being as good as some other man) has been foisted onto the woman who is required to save the man from his fears of inadequacy.’

I couldn’t have put it better myself. This is one of over 400 comments that were posted on the worldhaveyoursay site where the topic was first raised. It is an emotive issue and the comments on the site reflect that.

 I cannot help but come back to the same blindingly simple thought again. In the modern age, women, as well as men must be able to make these choices for themselves. It really is that simple.

Now for the facetious bit. I can’t help it but honestly, this story is worth telling twice. I posted it on my blog last year but if you didn’t see it then, try it now. This story tells you everything you want to know about the word ‘unbelieeeeeevable’.

 

 

Power to the people...

On Tuesday, we heard about Darcy's dilemma. Today, the people talk back!

First up is Ted, the sixty-year-old owner of a story that I posted on October 21st last year. I don't mind admitting that there are times when I think Ted lives between the fictional pages of a Mills and Boon novel, such is his attachment to an old fashioned approach to 'married love'. But despite this affliction, Mr T can always be relied upon for a well thought out and brilliantly written response. What I particularly like about his reply today is his rather brilliant shopping analogy. Turns out, sex and shopping are related after all….

'Darcy, I am something of an authority on virginity and the associated Christian guilt-complex in that I was a virgin for a VERY long time. But the more I think about the topic of virginity, the less qualified I feel to speak!  There is so much I realize that I do not know. Nonetheless, here are a few reflections, and a plea, following your piece.

Plea first:  do not think yourself into a 'no win' situation in your understandable concerns about the end of your virgin state.  Rather, try to think yourself into a 'no lose' frame of mind.  I don't mean, ' no lose virginity'. I see this as your 'property' to control as YOU wish and change, when you, and only you, want to.  Think of it like this:

Imagine that someone gave you the gift of a sum of money, and you went out looking around stores and saw lots of quite tempting things on display for sale...yet, tempting as these items may have been, there was nothing that seemed 'just right', nothing that you would have been completely happy at parting with your money in order that you might own it.  On returning home, you might have a pang of sadness that you did not have a tangible object in your arms, and feel 'left out' when you saw your friends proudly clutching things, but you would still, I should think, feel a secret glow of knowledge that you had retained your full 'purchasing power' for possible use at a future date when a range of even more attractive produce might be on offer. 

It might also be worth remembering the comment of the pianist Liberace, who, when asked if the taunts of critics upset him, replied:  'I cry all the way to the bank!'

Well said, Ted.

Next up is my blogging friend DJ Kirkby. DJ does more than just blog. She is a midwife and as such, the owner of some practical advice for the aspiring non-virgin. I know I said this wasn't about me but I have pulled her last point up front and made it the first point. I think it’s the most important one:

 'My thoughts after reading Darcy's letter:

 8) Life is written in pencil, nothing so wrong that it cannot be remedied in at least a small measure and nothing so gloriously perfect that it cannot be improved upon.

1) She is an amazing person, very brave and strong even if she may not believe this about herself.

 2) She is not ready to have sex/make love yet. We all mature sexually at different times and all have to meet the right guy to turn our 'sexy' switch on, even if it is just someone we do not know on an intimate level.  It could be someone we see regularly like a teacher or a friend. It does not have to be the guy that she actually has sex with the first time, but she should wait until she feels that all-important urge of a sexual nature.  

3) For some people this never happens at all and they choose to embrace a life of celibacy, there are many websites with forums for like-minded people on this topic.

 4) She may bleed a bit, but if both her and they guy are expecting it, it shouldn't be an issue. Have some baby wipes close by.

 5) Do not be ashamed to use lubricant for your first or even subsequent times, the wetter the better and more comfortable making love will be.

 6) The position that Darcy should use the first time or anytime she makes love with someone is whatever position they end up in, these things are better if not planned out to the nth degree.

 7) If she has sex with a man she later finds out has betrayed her or was not the one she considered to be the 'one', she will recover from this, even though she does not believe she can'.

Short and to the point. Thank you DJ. Last up is Sophie.  I interviewed her for my book last year. At twenty-three years old, she may be the baby of our panel, but that doesn’t make her any less qualified to have an opinion. Here we go: 

‘Hi Darcy

Well, I think the first thing that comes to mind is that everything you've said is extremely normal. I've had the same background as you - no abuse, no bullying - but that doesn't mean that you or I aren't allowed to be scared!

My current boyfriend comes from a Catholic background, so I completely relate to the pressure that puts on you. We're open in all parts of our relationship but it’s taken a long time of talking and patience to deal with some of his 'religion-related' issues.

It's a difficult toss up (excuse the pun) as we're born into a modern society and our lives reflect this - yet we are still entrenched in a very traditional way of thinking. There's nothing wrong with that, but it’s something to keep in mind. Don't put too much pressure on yourself to live by these sets of rules; getting the right balance isn’t easy.

As for the deed itself, four months is a good amount of time to be with someone - but its still not that long. If you think that doing something will create feelings of regret - chances are your instincts are right and it just not worth pushing yourself.

Unfortunately, I can't say whether your boyfriend is or isn't serious about you, but a four month relationship says to me that it’s not purely sexually driven. Ask yourself if he's pressuring you to do it and that will give you a better answer than I can.

I can tell you though that my first time was a very good experience, I had been with my boyfriend for about the same time as you. We hadn't discussed it or planned it - it just happened. I didn't bleed (probably because I'd been very sporty in my early teens), and it didn't hurt. I think that negative experiences are usually more memorable, and are often over-exaggerated.

I think that taking advice from friends is a fantastic thing, but remember that they too are in the same position as you. I'd really hate to be thought of as condescending, but I certainly didn't know enough about sex at seventeen to be giving sound advice. Also, being on top doesn't make a whole lot of difference from a pain perspective, but as you grow to enjoy sex, it makes it more pleasurable.

 It's a bit of a cliché - but when things are right for you, you'll know it and you wont feel so uncertain. I'd suggest waiting a little longer until things become clearer.’

Darcy, I hope my contributors have helped you to make a tricky decision  a little easier and on that note, 'The Virginity Project' is planning a little ‘self help’ of another kind. I am off for some serious R&R on the sunny isle of Mallorca. See you in a week or two, adios amigos!

To have and to have not....

Sometimes a story’s interest lays not so much in what it does say as what it doesn’t. This is a curious little tale with some large holes. I was going to wait and post it once its author filled the gaps but I can’t hold back.

He raises a subject not often mentioned: the male urge to have sex with virgins. I was going to try and dress that up a bit but what’s the point? This is what I mean to say. Since the dawn of time, the virgin woman has held a certain allure. This is beyond the need for verifiable paternity so that the correct children inherit the correct wealth and it’s also beyond the concept of virginity as commodity, something to be traded via marriage for upward social mobility.

This is virginity as fetish. The idea that the virgin woman imbues us with something magical that cannot be gained elsewhere. Youth perhaps? Or even a cure for Aids? This may seem a preposterous idea, but in this day and age, children in some parts of the world are suffering under the tragic and misguided belief that sex with a virgin will cure you of AIDS.

Virginity is a powerful and potent symbol. As ever, I turn to Hanne Blank and her book ‘Virgin: The Untouched History’, for some clarity. She says this:

‘In eroticizing virginity, youth, physical nobility, ignorance, inexperience, fragility, and vulnerability are objectified from the perspective of someone who, by definition, is none of these things. The erotic charge of sex with a virgin rests on the interplay of the sexual aggression of an experienced partner and the sexual submission of a virginal one. It champions sex as a vehicle for completion and transformation, and it insists that a person who has sexual access to a woman automatically claims or colonizes her, body and soul.

Virgin territory. Perhaps that’s what its all about. Is it that deep down, man needs to plant his stake, so to speak, upon virgin soil, previously unsullied by anyone else? Who knows? The owner of our story certainly isn’t sure. ‘I am not a religious person’, he tells us, ‘but I may have been influenced by religious thinking’. He then finishes by telling us ‘my obsession with having ‘pure love’ is a detriment to my happiness and life in general’. This is a large statement with no conclusion – yet. Watch this space and let’s see if we can’t get to the bottom of one of The Virginity Project’s most perplexing challenges yet.

*‘Brady’. Age unknown.

'Hi Kate,

Wow, have you ever set up a good website. The topic of virginity has consumed my life. First of all, I am male. I abstained throughout high school, figuring that there was ‘one for everyone’. I soon changed my mind and thought that I would have to have sex because nobody seemed to have any morals whatsoever and that if I were to be seen as ‘cool’ by the ladies then I would have to lose my virginity. This logic does not make much sense as I write it. I didn't have it, but to have it, I had to have had it previously: the paradox of virginal thinking!

Anyways, my friend hooked me up with a ready and willing (drunk) girl at the bar one night, and we did it. Unfortunately, she was not expecting a one-night stand and ran off upset. I also did not feel that much better about myself for having done it. It really seemed like nothing had changed, besides perhaps feeling a bit more superior to another girl, my first serious girlfriend, who had just broken up with me.

Still, there was a yearning to have meaningful sex. The one-night stand didn't do much to make me feel like I'd accomplished anything besides thinking ‘Yes, I'm cool, girls. I've done it’. Then there was another paradox: I was desiring a virgin so much, but then thinking why had I decided to go ahead and lose my own virginity?

Since then, I've had a series of girlfriends, both serious and not, from near-engagements to one-night stands. Yet still, I long for a virgin. I believe it is the only way I can find pure, everlasting love, and form a pure, unbreakable bond with a girl. I am not even a religious person, although I may have been influenced by religious thinking. Where I got my beliefs from is a whole other question; some guys don't seem to think virginity is an issue at all.

My obsession, (as I will call it) with having ‘pure love’ is a detriment to my happiness and life in general. It's a depressing cloud that covers me. I try to find happiness in the girls that I'm with, yet I confront them, I challenge them, and make them feel guilty for what they have ‘done’. It makes me wonder if I can ever be happily married or love my wife the way I know I could. So, I'm waiting, sometimes to the point of hopelessness and despair, for the girl who will pledge herself and her love to me and make me feel like a whole, complete human being.'

*All names changed to protect identity.

Everything but the girl…

Perhaps you think that as a non practising Christian, I have something against god. Perhaps you think that I believe that people should throw caution to the wind and the rest of you be dammed. Actually I don’t. But I will tell you this: I am irritated beyond belief by the ways in which religion controls women.

Whoever invented the contraceptive pill was a genius. Could he, (for in a lovely twist of irony it was a he) ever have dreamt what a tidal wave of change would wash over a world that kept women chained to the cooker/home/bed simply because they couldn’t control their own fertility? I am oversimplifying the facts but this is what it really boils down to. Women used to need men and now they don’t. Except for the things that really count in life: love, companionship, warmth and protection. All the things that men need too.

We are all singing from the same song sheet, so why the fuss? Why do people persist in telling other people what to do and dress it up as something else? Its 2008 and women (and men for that matter), must be able to make basic choices for themselves without the burden of guilt.

Here is a consummate lesson in ‘owning your own sexuality’. No muss, no fuss, this is the story of a girl who asked the question, ‘who makes the decisions around here’?

Me, god, or the judgement of everyone else?

I think you know the answer.

Lynette, Southern California, USA (Born 1985)

I was the ‘everything-but-sex’ girl for a good six years of my sexual maturity. My first kiss came from a boy who pushed me up against a wall and stuck his tongue down my throat.....not all it was hyped up to be. He'd come over while my mom was at work and we'd make-out for hours. I'd let him put his hand up my shirt but that was the extent of it, after all, Jesus was watching.

One day he thought himself clever and slipped Mr. Happy over to the side of his shorts and I very accidentally came into contact with the most disgusting, wrinkly appendage I'd every felt. I was pretty much over it right then and there.

Boyfriend # 2. I'm sixteen now and everything-but-sex now includes my hands and his hands and a crazy, messy blur of clothes and mouths and ‘everything-but’. I asked if he was ready. I was scolded for even bringing it up and we continued on as if nothing had happened. I got to hold on to my v-card and assume the Christian mould and he got to continue being a weenie.

For years I pulled out the 'waiting till marriage' speech every time someone asked, when secretly, it was merely by chance that I hadn't blown it at sixteen. It became this crazy, inner struggle between what the church had told me was right and what I really felt. This continued until I was twenty. Enter Mike. Four years older than me and very much not a virgin. Beautiful piece of man. Incredible, charming and seductive. I knew he was a bad idea the second I laid eyes on him.

I let him take me to dinner. After a month of make-out sessions with me saying ‘no, no’ and him saying ‘I won't, just let me *stay* here’, I finally gave it. I'd like to believe I ‘gave in’, but truly he had one foot in the door already.

It was amazing. I went home that night and stared at myself in the mirror for an hour. I felt like something in me had shifted and like it should have shown on the outside...it didn't. But I had been changed; I had taken charge of something that for so long had been controlled by something other than myself. And it brought me closer to the thing I had feared for so long, that maybe God's not so concerned with whether or not I'm wed before I'm bedded. Maybe it's about being aware of myself and things that I'll stand for. My happiness, my confidence, my self-respect came from being that much closer to understanding the inner workings of myself.

God still loves me, and now so do I. And seriously, everything-but? It all came down to owning my own sexuality and allowing it to grow within me without being told how to do it.

I can't get No....duh nuh nerr....SATISFACTION

Judging by some of the stories I get sent, virginity is not a place that most of us want to go. A recent contributor summed it up thus: ‘most people view virgins as pathetic losers who should just make more of an effort.’

No mincing of words there then. But he has a point. Time and culture have dictated virginity to be a place of shame, disempowerment even, despite the fact that our definition of virginity loss precludes any number of sexy things that we might have done that don’t involve putting a penis into a vagina. As one of my interviewees once said, ‘I certainly didn’t feel like I had ‘lost’ anything, I’d had so much cunnilingus, I had lost my innocence long ago’. I rest my case.

Virginity loss is a nebulous issue, but in the end it doesn’t really matter what I think or how we define it, it is still the bogeyman of modern culture. Who wants to be a dried up old virgin when you can be, well, Jordon?

Which got me wondering if virginity really is all that bad? And do we all have such a negative outlook? There must be someone out there who could turn this thing on its head?

I found her.

‘Virginity is extremely alluring’.

Come again?

Its author continues: ‘its mysterious allure is not rooted in an image of innocence and purity, but rather in the notion of strength. It takes a strong woman to be abstinent, and that’s the sort of woman I want to be’.

Now, I can’t speak for the guys, and something tells me that these words are unlikely ever to be uttered from the lips of a man, but whatever way you look at it, this is still an interesting statement. Who would say such a thing?

Janie Fredell is who, a student at Harvard University and contributor to a series of articles by Randall Patterson for The New York Times. Janie is a Catholic girl who had never found the need to join the abstinence movement, mostly because she came from a place where ‘literally everyone’ wore chastity rings - but Harvard was the opposite end of the scale.

‘The hook-up culture is so absolutely all-encompassing’, she says. ‘It’s shocking! It’s everywhere!’ She decided to take a stance and took up the reins at ‘True Love Revolution’, Harvard’s very own answer to ‘The Silver Ring Thing’. I should be shot down for such a lazy comparison, so, to re-dress the balance, here is their homepage mission statement to read for yourself:

‘TRL is a new non-sectarian, student run organization at Harvard College dedicated to the promotion of pre-marital abstinence. We strive to present another option to our peers regarding sex-related issues, endorsing ideas of abstinence and chastity as a positive alternative for ethical and health reasons’.

OK, so far, so…abstinent. It’s not my cup of tea but each to their own and here’s the bit that interests me:

‘It’s extremely countercultural for a woman to assert control over her own body’, says Fredell. ‘It is, in fact, a feminist notion. Conventional feminism’, she explains, ‘teaches that control of your body means the freedom to have sex without consequences – sex like a man. I am an unconventional feminist’.

This is a pretty big statement and we could spend all day picking it apart. Believe me, I have just spent twenty minutes trying to do so in a nutshell. We all have our points of view. I’ll just say this. I admire her stance. In this day and age, it’s not easy to stand up and say ‘I don’t have sex and that’s my choice’. ‘Feminist notions’ aside, it is still her right as a human being and as a woman to do as she pleases.

But is self-inflicted fundamentalism really healthy? After all, whether we like it or not, human bodies are hard wired for procreation. Even if we were deaf and blind with no sense of smell, we would still have the hormones and as such, the urge to mate. Should we be holding ourselves back?

Just a thought.

The point I am trying to get to is this: does virginity have to be the last word in hell or can it be something better, a position of power even?

I don’t know about power but medieval woman might have argued for something even more intoxicating: freedom.

Back in the day, you were either married or waiting to get married. These were the roles that were allocated to women. There was none of this ‘you can be anything you like’ malarkey. You got married and fulfilled your duty as a wife, a mother and a housekeeper. Nobody expected any more, or less of you.

You can see why the convent held a certain allure.

Virginity equaled opportunity for the medieval nun. Yes, they were married to god and a life of devotion, but above and beyond that, relatively speaking, nuns got to call the shots. They spent their time with like-minded people. Nobody expected them to change nappies, tend children and have sex with their parent’s choice of marriage partner. More than that, they were educated. This might not sound like a big deal but back in the dark ages, women’s education was not top of the list of priorities. As Hanne Blank writes in her book ‘Virgin, The Untouched History’…

‘Years of singing or listening to a relatively limited collection of familiar texts whilst looking at the books would eventually result in women figuring out how to match what they heard to what they saw’. She continues, ‘to the nuns, it was a miracle bestowed upon the deserving, pure-hearted virgin by god: when the gift of literacy bloomed in the mind of Hedwig von Regensburg, the entire choir of sisters saw her heart shine through her body and habit “like the sun through glass”.

Powerful stuff. Just throw Elizabeth 1st into the mix, a woman who knew that relinquishing her virginity for marriage could cost her her freedom and the future of her country, and we see that virginity packed quite the heady punch in those days. But all to an obvious cost – our sex lives.

Times are different now. We live in the era of ‘having it all’. We have the freedom, the education and the sex life. But it still comes at a price. Because this will all be cold comfort to my lonely friend, the ‘pathetic loser who should just make more of an effort’. And I am right back where I began.

I feel for men. I really do. You could argue that women’s freedom has been to the detriment of men. Because whilst women may have the opportunity to have ‘sex like a man’, the sad fact is, that depending on which way you look at it, this now means that she can choose not to have sex with you.

Women hold the cards. A fact that I wish I could shout from the rooftops to teenage girls who still think that they need to lose virginity in order to gain acceptance/to be a ‘real’ woman – insert whatever your particular insecurity is here. But they don’t, and nor do men. Because that’s what this post is really all about. That times may change, as does our perception of virginity loss, but the pay off is that we suffer in equal measures. It’s not just women who are sweating about virginity. Men are too!

The Virginity Project takes a trip....

Water Lillies is one of those French films that normally I would hate, and truth be told, if you held a gun to my head and asked me to pick between that and ‘Echo Park LA’, another film that features virginity ‘loss’, I would choose Echo Park or ‘Quinceanera’ as it was originally known. But that’s just me and there’s a reason for it. I like happy. I like bright and I like warm weather. Whilst elements of Echo Park LA are harsh, the story is told against the rich vibrant background of Latino life in the Sunshine state – California – with a guaranteed 365 days of nice weather per year. Life might be hard but the temperature is hot and the ‘uncle’ of the film is the owner of one of the cutest little gardens I have ever seen.

Horticultural preferences asides, ‘Water Lillies’ is another kettle of fish altogether. You know those French films that are set in the geographical equivalent of Staines? Not even Staines but Staines in the sticks. Staines in the middle of nowhere with nothing to do and nowhere to go and the director never lets you forget this for even a moment or tries to dress this town up to be anything other than what it is. This is the filmic version of heroin chic. No frills, no spills, just real life with all the glamour of a bare bulb swinging back and forth across a sparsely decorated bedroom.

I’m just trying to flag up some of the internal prejudices that this rookie film reviewer has to wrestle with when she steps into the cinema and frankly I don’t suppose I shall be spending much of my life reviewing films for anyone other than myself with that attitude but I will say this: ‘Water Lilies’ is a terrific film.

This is a film that takes you back to a time when stuff mattered. I don’t mean the stuff that you think about now: houses, mortgages, jobs and money, I mean the important stuff. Desire, boys, girls and hormones. Do you remember when the four walls that surrounded your bedroom felt like the universe? Do you remember the first time you felt like you might die if the feelings you felt were not reciprocated? This film does. It takes us slap bang into the world of three very different young women as they explore their first forays into the world of physical love.

There are no holds barred here, literally and figuratively. The director pulls no punches when she illustrates how the foxier of the three goes about the technical loss of her virginity - I don’t want to ruin this scene for you, you’ll have to see it. These are young urban women with nothing to hold them back from pursuing their teenage desires, unlike the protagonist of my other new favorite film, ‘Echo Park LA’ – a bit of a misnomer actually as it came out in 2006.

Magdalena has no such luck. She is on the eve of her ‘Quinceanera’. This is the traditional Mexican celebration that informs the world of a girl’s impending woman hood. Virginal women hood. ‘Quinceanera’ means fifteen and as such, all fifteen-year old Mexican girls are supposed to be ‘pure’. This is a problem for Magdalena because she is pregnant.

Here we arrive at a theme that these two films share. One of the modern absurdities of our time is the misinformed belief that an inconsequential piece of skin is a reliable indication of virginity. Every sane person knows that a hymen can be broken in so many ways, none of which involve sexual intercourse.

For our French sisters, this tiny piece of skin represents nothing more than a physical barrier, something to be removed quite literally, again - I won’t tell you how - and, most importantly, in order to save face. No one wants to be a big prissy virgin. But for Magdalena, the presence of this anatomical detail is a saving grace. She might be pregnant but she didn’t have sex - at least not the penetrative kind.

And yes, in case you are wondering, it is possible to get up the duff this way. My friend’s thirteen-year old daughter is living proof of this fact. Hello? Fingers can fit into all sorts of places and sperm can swim!! Luckily for Magdalena, this oversight has been noted by the local doctor, luckily for us, not before our hapless heroine is dispatched to live with the other black sheep of her family, her gay cousin. Here the film finds its heart between the tender interplay of these characters and their protector, the lovely garden owning great uncle.

Neither film takes a moral stance on any of this activity; it merely observes the characters as they struggle to take their first sexual steps whilst being judged against the activities of their peers – Water Lillies, and the social mores of their elders – Echo Park LA.

Water Lillies may lack the surface sunshine of ‘Echo Park’ but it has a very warm core - topped off by some truly beautiful performances. OK, I know these girls are professional actors but this is some serious subject material and they carry it off superbly. Ditto Echo Park, which strays into documentary territory at times, so visceral are the emotions expressed by these actors.

Both films echo what I reach to achieve on this blog – the gravity and the humor of some very serious situations. For some people, the loss of virginity is literally life threatening. For others the consequences may not be so drastic, at least not to the naked eye.

Echo Park LA is available here.
Water Lillies is out on 14 March in the UK. Take a look...

Let Love Rule?

Donkey’s years ago, in my early twenties, I got my first proper job. Don’t get me wrong, I’d had hundreds of jobs by this point but this was the first where I got paid monthly i.e. I was going to stay put for longer than ten minutes.

I didn’t mind because it was my hearts desire. My first job in the music business. A whirlwind of gigs, guest lists and glamour, at least in my imagination. In reality, I got to answer the phone to Ian McCulloch. This was no great hardship at the time because I was a huge Echo and the Bunnymen fan. I also got to observe my boss at close quarters, a flame haired Viking of a man with a penchant for the re-arrangement of everyday audio equipment.

‘What do you mean the spare phone doesn’t work?’

‘Well, I phoned BT and they said it wasn’t broken enough to fix’.

He picks up the phone and dashes it to the floor.

‘It’s broken now’.

Okey dokey, I’ll just give them another call then.

In amongst this tomfoolery was the very real opportunity to see as many free gigs as I liked. Me and my friends made full use of this facility. Glastonbury with The Cure, backstage camping and access all areas? I was there. The Cramps at The Crypt in Brixton? Count me in. The Happy Mondays at Wembley Arena? Truly one of the magical musical hi-lights of my life. But it wasn’t just the big boys I was interested in. I went to see the little fish too.

In the winter of ‘89, I went to some dump off Oxford Street to see the first British show of a new artist that the agency had just signed. His name was Lenny Kravitz and he tore the place to shreds. A man, a guitar and a stage. That’s it. Even to my untrained eye, it was quite obvious that something was up. The rest of the crowd thought so too. Both Roachford and Terence Trent D’arby left the room shortly afterwards – literally and metaphorically.

Fast forward to the present day and it is no surprise that Mr Kravitz is a multi million selling babe magnet of a talented man who has……..decided to give up sex until he gets married. Yes, you heard me. Lenny Kravitz will remain celibate until he meets and marries the woman he loves.

Now, I had planned to ponder upon the idea of ‘secondary virginity’. The idea that one can ‘start over’ again, even if one has had quite a lot of sex, thereby attaining secondary, or ‘born-again’ as some types prefer to call it, virginity. But I don’t quite think this is Mr Kravitz’s style. Spiritual he may be, but ‘born again’, I think not.

But once I had googled the words ‘Lenny Kravitz + sex’ and flicked my way through ten pages of the above mentioned story, and counting, I had to ask myself – again, why is it that we cannot get our heads around the fact that some people actively choose not to have sex, for a whole bunch of different reasons? Is it just too much of an anomaly in today’s society to abstain, not for religious reasons, but simply because you want to save it for someone that you really like, or even, dare I say it, love?

I have an issue with ‘The Silver Ring Thing/True Love Waits/Creepy teenage-controlling-right-wing Christian groups. I don’t think it is right to ask what are essentially children to make very adult decisions about their lives and their bodies. It is natural to grow, to change and develop. People must be free to make individual choices as these changes occur. This is what living in a democratic society is all about.

Having said that, I do think it is a sensible question to ask yourself if you are having sex with someone: why am I doing this? I don’t think there is a right or wrong answer to this question but there is something to be gained by asking it.

Much as I don't like to link to her tedium, (although I do wish her a speedy recovery from her recent illness), Dawn Eden posted this on her blog the other day:

"There is no such thing as giving the body without giving the soul. Those who think they can be faithful in soul to one another, but unfaithful in body, forget that the two are inseparable. Sex in isolation from personality does not exist! An arm living and gesticulating apart from the living organism is an impossibility. The separation of soul and body is death. Those who separate sex and spirit are rehearsing for death'.
—Fulton J. Sheen, Three to Get Married

OK, it’s a tad dramatic but it’s an interesting point. Are we hurting ourselves by having sex with people that we are not commited to? Perhaps this is what Lenny is driving at. Sharing bodily fluids with another human being is pretty serious stuff. Is it not better to do it with someone we love?

Lets face it; we’re not likely to find out unless one of us marries him. Which brings me to my next point. As I pondered these questions in the shower the other morning whilst simultaneously meeting Lenny Kravitz, falling helplessly in love and moving lock, stock and cat to Miami, I arrived at the part where we were just about to get hitched….and panicked! Could I really marry a man that I had never ever had sex with? What if it was awful? A let down, a damp squib. Perhaps he doesn’t even have a penis? My mind flailed around trying to find answers to imaginary questions. This is serious stuff.

I came to my conclusion. No, I don’t think I can marry Lenny. Much as he impressed me with his axe skills all those years ago on a dingy London stage. Marriage is too big a commitment without first road testing the rest of the equipment. Quite apart from the fact that I might go bonkers in the process. I admire Lennie’s commitment to his cause. I would high five him if he were sitting on my bed right now but it would take a lot more than a wedding dress and a ring to win my heart. Sex is way too big a part of a relationship to take a chance on.

Unless we’ve got an ‘everything but’ situation on our hands? Ok, now this I might be able to work with, maybe for Lenny. But then what’s the point in waiting until you get married when you’ve done all the important stuff anyway. Penetration is merely a formality when it comes to sex. There are a hundred ways to enjoy each other without ever having penetrative sex. Or, 'what goes around comes around', as Lenny might say...

Tori – Part Two

Discovering that true intimacy means being mentally naked – just as much as it involves the physical shedding of clothes was one of the great revelations of my life. Perhaps that is why this story resonates and also why, after all the wonderful stories I have been sent, this is an all time favourite.

Some of us spend years searching for someone we can be naked with. Tori has gone in at the top. Ok, soul searching was involved, religion had its say too but she got there in the end. I don’t think I am ruining the story by telling you that it was worth the wait.

The moment….

We joke that sex was my twentieth birthday present. It was actually a month and a day after that we had sex, but it was around my birthday that we set about exploring in earnest.

I'm not sure what changed. I knew from the beginning that if things worked out between G and I, we would have sex at some point. I worried about timing, about starting this before we were sure that I could cope with being in a relationship with him, let alone sex. But I woke up on my birthday, and, without fanfare or angst, it seemed right. Now was as good a time as any. I spent a large part of my twentieth birthday learning to give a hand job. It was only when someone rang me at four in the afternoon that I remembered that it was in fact my birthday.

I had never been touched before. I was - am still - very tense. At first, what should have been pleasure responses registered as pain. All the sensitive nerves in my vulva exploded in sharp stabbing fire. He was so gentle and patient with me, backing off until I was ready to try again. Time, patience, and the pleasure responses balanced out the pain. G encouraged me to touch myself before he attempted to finger me. He lay there and coaxed me and encouraged me and reminded me that there was no way to get it wrong, as long as it felt good.

I relaxed enough that he could slide his finger inside of me. The muscles around the outside were tight and painful, but inside... I had no idea of what to expect and was overwhelmed. I tried to curl up into a ball around these new sensations and cried ‘what is this, what is this?’ Those first few times, even before the pain receded, were the most intense. I had no time to worry about what was going to happen next, I lost myself in the moment. I didn't notice when my hymen broke because - for the first time, that day, there was no pain at all when he touched me.

We stuck with that for a while. As a matter of honour, he maintained that we were going no further before the end of semester, when I would have a chance to catch my breath and make sure everything was ok. Everything was ok. The half-expected reality check never happened. Neither of us came to our senses and recovered from our insanity.

Sex itself took several false starts. The first try, I freaked out at the last moment. G had apparently expected this, but I was confused and taken aback. For a large part, at that point I just wanted to get past the first time, to have it out of the way so that I didn't have to worry about the unknown. But that unknown scared me enough that I just couldn't do it.

I don't know what was different the next time but we started messing around a bit with different positions, on the basis that if we were going to have false starts we might as well have some variety to them. Somewhere, one of them worked.

We had to stop and start again a bit the first time. I remember feeling mostly confused, having to process a bunch of new sensations. The physical intimacy, the discomfort, new and (mostly) good feelings. It hurt - even now, a month or so later, the moment of penetration is still uncomfortable for me, but I didn't care. We had sex again quite soon afterwards, this time with me on top. It was that second time that the whole sex thing clicked for me. G tells me I had my mouth hanging open in a most unladylike manner, as I lost track of everything around me, even him beneath me.

When I came back to earth I freaked out a little, surprised by the intensity that had taken me. G gave me space to myself for a while and I sat on his stairs while he pottered around, and took stock. I think I had to make sure that I hadn't in fact lost anything, that I was still the same person. Which I was, and am. Virginity loss hasn't changed a lot of things. I still don't know what I'm doing half the time; I'm still getting comfortable with myself, and sex - and G. I'm still easily overwhelmed or frightened by it all.

That's ok, though, because this isn't really about first time sex. It's about G, and I, and having a relationship and sex, which is loving and safe and honouring to both of us. Which also happens to be awesome sex. Even when it's Bad Sex, when we're uncoordinated and tired and nothing quite works, it's still awesome - gentle and tender and patient and funny. It doesn't matter how long it takes to work it all out - right now it feels like we have all the time in the world.

I have been so incredibly lucky to find G. People spend half their lives reading chick lit and waiting for something like this to come along. This is the sort of relationship the True Love Waits society tells you is 'worth the wait'. And it is, no arguments. If I thought they were right, that premarital abstinence was the only way to have a relationship like this, I'd sign the card right away. Clearly, their prescribed method of achieving this isn't the only route, though. It doesn't matter if G and I are only together for a year, or three or thirty. What matters is that it is true and honest and loving, right now.

I'd like to say this is all I've ever hoped for, but to be honest this is nothing like what I'd hoped for. I've been a cynical person, with little tolerance for pipe dreams, regardless of whether it's chick lit or the church who are offering them. If I expected anything at all, it was a comfortable friendship which would drift slowly into a relationship and commitment. Somewhere along the line there'd be sex. But G happened along, and all I can say is that if I ever settle for second best, I'll know what I'm missing.

Afterwards

‘I just wonder’, you asked me Kate, ‘if real love is that much of a strong emotion that it forces us - albeit in a very pleasant way, to re-assess everything we thought we knew’...?

‘Real Love’ has caused me to reassess many things. Not the things I thought I knew, but the things I worried about not knowing. How would I know when I found ‘a sexual relationship which enriches you as an individual’? What, exactly, did that consist of? What would it look like?

Maybe, had G. and I not had this silly instant connection, all those questions would still be difficult. But I knew this in the same way that I knew I loved him. I knew it, because I knew it. I can't describe how I know it, but hopefully I have described to others what that knowledge feels like.

To return to ‘losing’ my virginity. They tell you that your virginity is the greatest gift you can give your partner, but I cannot feel that I have given away anything. Oh, G. is damn special, and has every reason to feel so, but there are many things I have given him – love, trust and instruction on the fine art of constructing a paragraph.

When it comes to sex, it is he who has given, and I who have received. G. turned up in my life and gave me a safe space in which to explore. He gave me no pressure, and no boundaries to fear. I had slammed the door shut on an uncontrolled wilderness that I could not understand. G. turned that into a room full of playpen balls and told me I could do what I liked with them.

In twenty years time, my virginity will be only a memory, but G has given me something which will last my lifetime: my body, all wrapped up with a metaphorical bow on it, and a free demonstration, of the ‘look what it can do’ variety. I still have a lot to learn, a lot to explore... but I'm not doing it alone.

Tori

I probably should save this post for Valentines Day, but heck, I can’t wait.

On the surface of things, this might appear to be a story about religion and how it affects the choices that people make. But I disagree. This is a story about love and how it affects the choices that people make.

Tori may be a Christian - or a vegetarian - or possibly even a two headed, purple-spotted alien, but it makes no difference. This is a woman who knows that she wants something - she isn’t sure what that something is but she is prepared to wait until she finds it.

I may not be religious in the traditional sense but even I had to say, ‘Tori, I believe that God would think you were a nutcase if you had passed up this chance’.

Love doesn’t come along every day. Grab it while you can.

The background…

‘You, my love, are no longer a virgin’, he says to me, his eyes wavering from my face to the bloody finger he has pulled out of me. I must look worried, because he smiles. In the medieval sense, that is.

For some reason I feel bereft. I can't understand it. The hymen has no inherent value. I didn't even know where it was, or if I still had one. But now it's gone and I can't get it back. I feel exposed. I curl onto my side and hide in sleep. His arms are still around me when I wake.

Last month I had sex for the first time. We had sex for the first time together. And the second and the third and then I lost count. I can be a little single-minded when I discover a New Thing. Fortunately, G seems to find this both adorable and flattering, so everyone is happy.

The terminology surrounding virginity is flawed. We talk about losing virginity, or giving it away. G prefers sharing, which I have to say is a much better term, but it still doesn't quite express what I am feeling. I have not lost anything, or given anything away. I am in no way less. If I lost anything, it was at that point, weeks ago, when my hymen broke courtesy of ‘outercourse’. I was overwhelmed, and inexplicably shaken up and I came home and wrote the little word sketch above. Something I had never been aware of was gone. But that loss did not mean I was no longer a virgin. It was merely a step, a stage in the journey.

G and I fell head over heels for each other. I met him four months ago and in a stroke of rather embarrassing irony, I noticed him at first only because he was with his very striking girlfriend. For some time, I remembered him only as the-guy-who's-dating-Striking-Girl. He came along to an extra-curricular group I'm in, and he and Striking Girlfriend started hanging out. G and I must have had a few conversations, nothing memorable, but during which we found out two facts which have since become a very interesting factor in our relationship: he is a vocal, steadfast and often angry atheist, and I a committed, though respectably left-wing Christian.

At some point I found out that Striking Girlfriend had gone away for a few weeks and G was feeling deprived of social interaction. I decided, out of the goodness of my heart, that we should take him under our wing and provide him with social interaction while she was away.

Weeks went past in a blur of late-night conversations. I found that I could talk to G candidly about my faith, which is very unusual. I don't talk about faith - theology, yes, but not the more personal side of it. Have you ever met someone and almost instantly known them? Fallen into them? The kind of instant connection that powers the chick flick industry? He walked into my life and I instantly trusted him.

The point when I realised that I couldn't think of anything that I would not be able to talk about with G was the point I realised that I could have sex with him. I found myself on the telephone to him at some weird hour of the night, telling him the story I had wanted to tell you when I last wrote. I mentioned then that abstinence education did nothing to prepare me for that confusing state of being, when your body and mind both want someone desperately, and yet both are overloaded with new sensations and desperately want out.

That was where I had ended up with my last partner - a state of total confusion. I thought that writing to you might help, but I was unable to put in words what was bothering me. Anyway, here I was talking to G, and it all came spilling out. This is the kind of person I want to sleep with announced my brain. Which was a little scary, given that he was still technically taken at the time and I was doing a great job of convincing myself I wasn't interested in him anyway.

Things kind of cart wheeled out of control; I realised I was interested in him about five minutes before a bunch of friends ambushed me and pointed out that I was glowing in his presence. For reasons that aren't any of my business, and which I take on trust were not directly related to me, G and Striking Girlfriend broke up.

Much angst ensued as he sorted out various things in his life. Somewhere in there, a friend of mine, prone to thinking she knows everything about everyone - and sadly she often does - announced that if I dated G, I would end up sleeping with him. I remember laughing, because at that point it didn't look like we'd get the chance to get that far. But the idea itself didn't bother me; I simply accepted it as true.

My partner before G was the first time I had experienced real desire and it had scared me. I didn't know what I was feeling, or how to deal with it. That particular relationship tailed off, which was all for the better, but I remained confused. I had caught a sideways glimpse of the vast unexplored territory within, and I didn't know what to do about it. The door didn't fit back quite as well as it had.

It was at this point that I first wrote to you. It helped, a great deal, because I was able to pin down a few basic principles. But what I really wanted to say, to someone – anyone - was that I was scared. The idea that I might have sex, the feeling of having to make sexual choices, was suddenly in my life, and no one, not my family nor my friends nor my church, was giving any classes on making those decisions, at least not to nineteen year olds who are, for all intents and purposes, adults. It wasn't until I met G, and found myself able to be completely open with him, that I found someone to say that to.

‘You get to make the decisions’, he maintains. This could be just typical male abrogation of responsibility, but I prefer to think he's being Gentlemanly. We took things as I was ready for them. There was that first kiss, which slid into making out, which slid into sleeping - actually sleeping - together. One of the nicest things you can do with another person is simply to curl up in one another's arms without any question of sex. People look at me funny (or used to), when I'd say that I wasn't having sex, and meanwhile I had my boyfriends stay over without batting an eyelid. But for my part, I've always known I couldn't have sex with someone without knowing that I trusted them enough to sleep by their side.

Next I learnt to recognise the expression on G's face that goes with a particularly delicious thought. At first, he was reluctant to tell me about them, assuming - reasonably enough - that it would squick me out to hear that he'd started daydreaming about how I might taste or some such. I expected me to be squicked out by these things. Instead, I found myself amused by his embarrassment and neutral about the mental images produced.

Then they would sneak up on me a few days later and part of my brain would go ‘hmmm... that could be fun.’ Once I'd noticed that this was a recurring pattern, I explained to G. that it was his duty to contribute to my store of mental images, since I lacked the experience or the sexual imagination to come up with many for myself. This duty he took upon himself without complaint, with the result that everything we've done so far, I've had plenty of time to think and talk about in advance. And we still have a store of these mental images to explore when we get the chance.

....to be continued – tomorrow....

Happy Sunday....

Its always a good day when one wakes up to find this type of email in one’s inbox. These are the moments that The Virginity Project lives for. Here it is…

‘Hi Kate.

In July, I wrote to you with some thoughts on sex, virginity and faith. You published it on your blog. Well, I'm now twenty and my life has been turned upside down. I have met a flaming atheist and fallen madly in love. I intend to sleep with him. In fact, I am in the process of losing my virginity to him right now and it is utterly unexpected - but delightful.

If you're interested, I can write you a reflection or two during this fascinating process. My outlook has changed quite a lot and having made a public statement, I feel I ought to make it again, with more practical evidence this time.'

Tori*

Am I interested? Er…just a bit. Last summer, ‘Tori’ wrote to explain her thoughts and feelings on the subject of virginity loss. Specifically hers. Tori is a committed Christian. Allow me to refresh your memory…

‘My choices about sex are religious choices, however, they are also personal, emotional and practical choices. I handed my virginity pledge in blank, because I object to that sort of manipulation and because I didn't feel like I was in any position to make that decision as a never been kissed fourteen year old.

I am single right now, but I have chosen in my relationships not to have sexual intercourse, and also not to engage in some of the many intimate forms of ‘outercourse’ (what a great word!). I intend to continue in ‘abstinence’, (also a problem word for me), perhaps until marriage and certainly until I find myself in a committed adult relationship with a long-term future.’

That time has come. Life has taken a turn for the unexpected. Better still, Tori intends to share it with us. Watch this space. I am editing as fast as my fingers will allow me!

* All names changed to protect identity