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’.
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