The Virginity Project

Viva la difference

I won’t lie. Last week was a long one and the thought of cuddling up in bed on Saturday morning was infinitely more appealing than arranging to be on the Euston Road by 10.30am.

But I had a ticket for the Wellcome Collection’s Symposium of Sexual Desire, so I got my shit together and I didn’t regret it one bit. This day long symposium promised to ‘delve into the complexity of sexual desire, tracing connections between history, sociology, psychology and neurophysiology’. It did so, with bells on and everything in between.

Two things spring to mind when thinking about this event. Research into an area that affects almost every waking moment of our lives is in its infancy and this fact blows my mind. We have built a rocket that could send a man to the moon but we still know next to nothing about the very reason that we exist in the first place. To illustrate my point, it’s only recently that we have begun to let go of the idea that vaginal orgasms are a myth for most women. It is simply not the way that the majority of the female population get off! But a man with a beard deemed it so sometime last century and culture dictated that these facts were not disputed.

Until now. Things are changing and Saturday’s programme at The Wellcome Collection confirmed this. The day was full of enthusiastic, insightful characters lifting away the layers of our intimate lives and trying to make sense of them. ‘It’s difficult to be scientific about such a subjective area’, said one of the speakers, but they gave it their best shot.

My second point is that at times, I am guilty of being negative about sex & the internet. I am disturbed by the fact that internet porn has become the default sex education. I’ve talked about this before. But the flipside is that the internet showcases a much more nuanced and less black and white model of sex. I see this in my own work all the time. If you’d asked a bunch of teenagers 10 years ago to define their loss of virginity, I’d wager that most of them (the heterosexual ones at least) would have mentioned penis-in-vagina sex.

Not today. Young people are freer to define their experiences on their own terms because they are exposed to more fluidity and choice. They understand that there are lots of different ways to experience sex and pleasure. So if the experience of having your first orgasm with someone meant more to you than having what, let’s face it, can be anti-climactic penetrative sex for the first time, so be it. Sexuality is a wide ranging arena and there are fewer and fewer ‘right’s or ‘wrongs’.  Just what feels right for you.

Asexuality, a phrase that I feel sure is set to become a buzz word for the future, was laid bare by Liz McDonnell & Susie Scott from the University of Sussex as they offered up a palate of asexual persuasions. Susie and Liz illustrated the spaces and places where the so called ‘normal’ sexual world overlaps with the asexual. Once again, who knew that asexuality was so nuanced and colourful? It reminded me of how shocked I was (at myself more than anything) when I first read the account that later become ‘The Asexuality Story’ in my book. Because I realised that asexuality was nothing to do with prudishness or having a personality schism or something that happened to people who had had disturbing experiences with sex.

It was more often about people who, whilst they might lack sexual desire, definitely did not lack interest in romance, intimacy or even passion. That there are all sorts of different ways of ‘being’ in this world and a lot of us are pretty limited when confronted with anything that strays from the norm. Here is some lovely writing on the subject of difference from Canvas8.

Katherine Angel led a fabulous conversation around the language that we use to talk about sexual desire, specifically women & desire because language in this area is mostly modelled on a male understanding and that seeing it solely as something that is ‘urgent’ can be prohibitive. That again, mimicking the theme of the day, there are lots of different ways to experience the D word. She also pointed out that that whilst we take male desire as a given, a story is emerging around women being more ‘unruly’ than is traditionally thought and proceeded to mention a piece of research conducted by Meredith Chivers that I really love.  I won’t go into one. You can read it here. But to summarize, women are turned on by just about everything: men, women, monkeys. Boom.

Kate Fisher delighted us with her collection of historical sex objects that she takes into schools to facilitate conversations with young people about sex, intimacy, body image and consent.  What a genius, not to mention genuinely informative idea.

And author Frederick Toates said that we 'needed more narrative based research’ which as you can imagine was music to my ears because this is what you, the readers & participants of this blog have helped me to co-create at The Virginity Project for the past 8 years.  Whilst I am at it, here is another narrative based piece of research I’ve recently completed.

The day could be summed up by Katherine Angel’s quote: ‘There is no normal; it’s just what is commonly accepted’.  So going forward, can we open our minds and commonly accept something curious and new on as many days of the week as possible?

Which leads me to today’s story.

There is little else to say about it asides from the fact that it’s a good thing that people are born with brains and can work things out for themselves because that’s some serious layers of shite that Kacey was forced to wade through in order to find ‘the truth’. Aka, her truth, the only truth that matters and not someone else’s agenda to push gender relations back to the Victorian era. Big up to Kacey for putting pen to paper and sharing it with us.

‘Hi Kate! I love your blog. Reading about other people's experiences is amusing and interesting. So I wanted to share mine. I am Kacey. I was born in 1995 and I'm from the United States. 

I come from a conservative Christian home. I was raised to believe that your virginity is special, only to be given to your husband and also that no good guy wants a girl that's already had sex. Youth pastors used horrible analogies to get this point across: "Would you want a present that's already been unwrapped? Exactly." 

So this scared me a lot. I've always been intrigued about sex from the time I got "the talk" in fifth grade, but I didn't think I wanted to do it until I was married. I even had a purity ring (which sits, dusty, in my jewellery box as I type this). I had also been told by many people that you would experience immense guilt after doing it before marriage. So I felt pretty confident in my virginity pledge. 

I met Justin when I was 16. He was so easy to be around. I never felt uncomfortable or judged by him. Soon after we started dating, the topic of sex came up and it turns out he had a pretty crappy experience with it at first. He had been kind of talked into it by a girl he was dating for only a few months and he didn't enjoy it. We decided it was in both of our best interests to wait. 

Fast forward two years later; we were on his bed, getting hot and heavy. He asked if I wanted him to "go down there" I reluctantly said yes and I didn't regret it.

It was bliss. 

After about a year of doing everything but intercourse, a few weeks ago, we tried it. 

This huge experience that everyone told me about was finally here. I was anxious to see what my own "first time" would end up like. 

It was pretty bland. It only lasted about four minutes, neither of us finished, and it was very uncomfortable, and slightly painful. Afterwards he held me and kissed me and told me he loved me like, thirty times. I was excited to have done it, and I can't wait to get more practice in. 

The thing is, I don't feel guilt like I was told I would. I don't feel this big emotional connection either; I was already so emotionally connected to Justin. He's the love of my life, and it was simply one of many first experiences we have shared together. 

That is my theory. Sex is what you make it out to be, and for me, it's an experience to share with someone. Don't get me wrong; I'm glad I waited to do it with Justin. But honestly, we had been ready to do it for a long time! Our relationship is so strong and solid, with or without sex. And that is what my youth pastors left out: Sex does not make or break a relationship. People do.'

*the painting depicts 'The Temptation of St Hilarion' (who doesn't look like he suffers an over abundance of hilarity) but you can read more here. He's in the Wallace Collection in London. 

Do not disturb..

I waged a real battle in my head over this one. Should I give this man a platform? Should we actually have to listen to this stuff? Is it even real? Or is he just a man with an empty bed and a rich imagination? In the end, this project has always been about presenting as many different points of view as I could and just because I loathe this particular one, does that mean that I should stop it from being heard?

I briefly toyed with the idea of filming people’s reactions to this story as they read it. I don’t know if you’ve ever seen the surprised cat on YouTube but mostly people’s faces looked a bit like this. And thats me trying to make light of something that is not funny. 

The pertinent part of this story for me is just how entrenched the Abstinence movement has become in American culture. This isn’t a casual movement, this is something that is funded by the government and the upshot is that young people are being prevented from receiving decent sex education in the vain hope that they will ‘abstain’ from having sex. Young women are being encouraged to pledge their virginity to their fathers at ‘Purity Balls’. This may sound like something out of a film but I can assure you that it is not. This is real and slowly but surely women’s virginity is being fetishized all over again. The following story is living, and rather disturbing proof of that fact.
‘Hi Kate, 

I was reading some of your collection of statistics on human sexual behaviour, and I noticed you were collecting data from individuals who were willing to share their experiences.
I am male, and I don't experience shame regarding sexual matters. I'm devout Roman Catholic, an almost chaste mystic, a prophet, sage and scribe. I'm an author, as I do need money to live in civilized society. That's just a fact of life. 
I was born 01/01/1981, in the USA. When I was 14, I was visiting my aunt and uncle. They left to the local bar to party. My aunt hired a babysitter, a neighbour’s daughter, because I didn't know how to care for small children.
I had never really been driven to have sex. I might note that males do not have virginity. The Roman Catholic Church developed a religious doctrine claiming the existence of male virginity, and gays and feminists adopted it as a means to obscure genetically programmed gender differences. 
So, I never considered myself a virgin, and I never lost my virginity. But the 13-year-old babysitter fell in love with me. I was not a very romantic 14-year-old, so I didn't know what was going on. I didn't acknowledge myself as attractive, so I didn't understand that girls would be attracted to me for mating.
I was innocent. I thought there were two ways for a female to have a baby: she could get married, and it happened magically; or she could have sex, and she could also have a baby that way.  The babysitter, named Sarah, got frustrated in her attempts to get my attention, and she came over and kissed me. After that, things just sort of happened, and I thought it was great. 
She was attractive, fit and developed almost like an adult woman. She was beauty queen later in her youth. I also turned out to be very attractive. We hung out from time to time, and we always went out when I was visiting my aunt and uncle. But that first experience changed me. I didn't look at the world the same way. I started drinking beverage alcohol, and experimenting with drugs. I didn't do as well in school.
It seemed like life had lost meaning. I fell away from the church. I had sex with about 20 girls in high school, mostly cheerleaders. I'd show up at parties, and the girls would fight over me. One party, a girl took me upstairs, and when we came back down, her one-year-younger sister took me upstairs.
I loved to party. In my early twenties, I lived in a trendy part of the city. Two of the girls from my high school class, but who I didn't date during high school, came to me at different times, telling me they wanted to have sex with me before they got married to their fiancés. I refused. 
One of my high school girls sought me out before I was to be married, and said she wanted to have me one last time. I know this sounds impossible and contrived, but I assure you, it's true. I deeply regret my sexual past, because I can't really love a woman.
I'm selfish and self indulged. I use women, and I can't help it. I'm going to keep on testing virgins for chastity, and when I find one who can resist me, who loves God more than she loves me, I'll marry her.
But I just can't respect a girl who soils herself. I think I love her, and that I really want to spend the rest of my life with her, but when I sow my issue inside her, she seems soiled. Then I can't wait to get away from her, because she's not desirable for her innocence.
I think of it this way: Every masculine male wants a girl he can call his own; a girl to whom he teaches the pain of atonement, and releases her blood sacrifice of innocence; that the child she bears might be blessed of her holy and chaste womb.
Men who are indifferent to whether or not they marry a virgin are not masculine. They are still boys, with no appreciation for the beauty of innocence. I was once a boy. I know. I lament each time a girl loses her virginity to me, because there goes another prospective bride.
I can father children all my life. But a girl is on a clock. No decent man wants to marry a girl who has already had some other guy inside her reproductive tract. Only a man lacking self respect will marry a non-virgin. 
Have you ever read any posts girls write about their nightmare boyfriends and husbands? These guys have utter disrespect for themselves, and for their women. But a non-virgin can't attract anyone else. 
I don't date for sex and recreation. I treat each date as a job interview for the position of wife and mother. But men are genetically programmed to test the chastity of each prospective bride. I just lure the girl into privacy, treat her like a sensual female, dim the lights, tell her I want to spend the rest of my life with her, and only her; and make her feel special, like she's the luckiest girl in the world, about to have the best night of her life, with the perfect male, and it will never end.
When I find a girl who tells me, ‘Put a rock on my finger, marry me, and get me pregnant. Then I'll believe you love me’, I'll devote myself totally to her happiness, for the rest of my life. I want a true equal for a wife. 
I'm back in good with mother church. I recite the rosary each day, and say The Chaplet of Divine Mercy. I read the Bible for at least 1/2 hour each day, and study Roman Catholic Doctrine. It isn't a sin for males to have sex before marriage, because that's the way men test female chastity. It's natural law. 
But it is a sin for a female to have intimate contact before marriage, because she loses her blood sacrifice of innocence. She's useless as a wife after that. She wasted her choicest ornament, allowing a man to use her as primal urge gratification flesh.
So I do value virginity. The world is going through a temporary phase. The genetic code of the unchaste female will be purged from the human gene pool, and female chastity will shine like light unto the world. It's a cyclical thing. Godless perverts don't reproduce, and the progeny of unchaste mothers is wiped from history in two generations.
Only the DNA of the chosen survives. That's an advantage God enjoys over Satan. Satan can corrupt one or two generations, but They can't alter the self cleansing property of human DNA. Only the chosen survive through generations, to become immortal.

That's just the way I feel. It's not right or wrong. Everyone functions according to their own beliefs. What was Truth is Truth now, and it always will be Truth. There is one Truth. Everything else is wrong. Heaven and earth shall pass away, but Truth shall never pass away. 
Mike’ 

Dear Kate,
‘I've religiously followed your website for quite a while, thinking in half-desperation, half-terror of the day I'd have my own story to share.  Secretly, I couldn't imagine it happening and thought it might never.  Now that it has, I feel very neutral.  I'm neither thrilled nor traumatized, but I did have fun writing the story….’
I had fun reading it as well let me tell you. I normally do a fairly brutal edit on the stories that I get sent but I haven’t taken a single word out of this one. You are a witty bunch out there and this story is no exception…but like many of the tales that I receive, it is one of contradiction. I won’t get many stories in my life that include the phrase ‘Creepy Blow Job Kid’. That made me laugh out loud. But there is sadness in this story too. Being young is confusing. What have we got to judge our feelings against? Is today's writer really asexual? Or is it just that she hasn’t yet found someone that she wants to get sexual with? I emailed her and asked her what she thought about that:
‘My sexuality is still totally unclear to me, but I'm not as panicked about it anymore. Now that the v-card is out the way, I hope to be more capable of assessing sexual situations based on whether I'm enjoying them rather than whether the person is worthy of my virginity. Although my libido is still in hiding, I really want to like sex now, instead of totally rejecting it as I did in the past….’ 
Asexuality is an interesting area. Most of us find it almost impossible to comprehend a life that doesn’t involve sexual activity of some kind. We also live in a society where, for some reason, it is critical to most people’s sense of well being to categorize the people around them. Have you ever watched a bunch of small children play with another child of indeterminate gender? They will always ask the question ‘is it a boy or a girl?’ because even at that very inchoate stage of our lives, we need to know how other people fit into our own picture. Sexuality is no different. Have a read of this, ultimately very charming, little story and you’ll see what I mean. People are under more pressure than ever to define themselves to the rest of society, gay, straight, asexual, whatever. In the meantime, I have no doubt that time and experience will show today’s storyteller the way ahead. One thing’s for sure, a sense of humour always helps and Sarah possesses this quality in bucket loads.
Sarah. Aged 20 from Boston, currently living in Spain.
‘A friend of mine once suggested to me that if I lost my virginity, I'd also lose my magic powers of man-seduction. Upon hearing the theory, another friend recommended that I relinquish both voluntarily as a favour to humanity.
For the majority of high school, sex was never an issue, as I changed boyfriends more often than I changed my tampon. That's a bad metaphor, because I had never used a tampon - the mere thought of inserting anything into my vagina was enough to swear me to celibacy. However, that didn't stop me from wheedling dinners, movies, and gifts from the unsuspecting wallets of the boys at my high school. If one of them mentioned 'sex', or worse, 'love', I'd drop him and move on to the next fool in line.
This worked splendidly until I got a longer-term boyfriend, who alternated between sweet nothings and vicious insults in order to pressure me into sex. Citing joint virginity loss as something desirable and romantic, he nearly convinced me; until I found out he was sleeping with other women. We broke up. ‘No one will ever wait for you as long as I did!’ he snarled, dismissing the fact that his idea of 'waiting' included SEX WITH OTHER WOMEN. ‘And no one will ever love you as much as I do!’ He'd combined both love and sex into a single tiresome cliché. Repulsed, I kept my phone off and my legs crossed.
Two years later, the situation spiralled out of control when, in a fit of emotional instability, he offered me $750 in exchange for a blowjob. Although the incident was mildly frightening, the subsequent story and resulting nickname (Creepy Blow Job Kid - original or what?) transformed it into something laughable. By that time, I'd enrolled at College of the Holy Coitus, where an annual Sex Party (pornography projected onto the walls, clothing optional) commemorates how mind-bogglingly progressive we are. At that point, my naiveté had allowed me to assume that, after the previous relationship fiasco, I'd simply find another boyfriend to whom I could lose my virginity. Instead, I found myself cowering from the hook up culture under the handy label 'asexual'.
By cowering, I actually mean partying three nights a week and bringing boys back to my room for some hardcore cuddling. For a year and a half, I made both hearts and balls blue with what I cleverly referred to as 'emotional promiscuity.' Although I swore apathy when it came to sex, I talked about it constantly. I was obsessed with it - from a clearly objective perspective, of course. I claimed I was fascinated by sex the way a person could find homelessness enthralling: a rich, multifaceted topic, but not really something I wanted to experience firsthand.
During this time, my fifteen-year-old sister swiped her v-card with the guy she was dating. I was devastated. In high school, my friends and I had joked about ‘winning the race’ with our respective boyfriends. One by one, each friend crossed the finish line while I shuffled along, half on the sidelines. Now my baby sister had beaten me too. Was it time to pick up the pace?
It sure wasn't. In addition to being deterred by my low libido, I sincerely felt that no one DESERVED my virginity. Lowly, grovelling suitors and bedpost-notching conquistadors amounted to very slim pickings. Besides, if I lost it now, it might just be a pathetic attempt to catch up to my sister. Thus, I decided that I had two options: I could keep my virginity for the rest of my life - or I could knock it off on an exciting adventure during my semester abroad in Spain!
And so I trotted off to Europe and immediately began seeing a Spaniard. He was twenty-two and had lost his virginity at fifteen. Needless to say, I was totally fine with this, as it had always been my dream to lose my virginity to a womanizer who'd absent-mindedly misplaced his seven years ago.
‘What is the problem?’ he asked in bewildered English during our first night alone. Then, assuringly: ‘I'm really good!’ Instinctively, I put up my dukes, ready to defend my vagina with all the usual tactics. Though I'd sworn to keep the secret - I'd planned to feign normalcy while abroad - I apologized with excuses of asexuality, virginity, and drug addiction. (My reasons for including that last bit still puzzle me. I'm sure loads of drug addicts have perfectly healthy sex lives.)
(Just kidding, I'm not puzzled. I'd actually been dabbling in LSD, and my experiences with the drug had kindly confirmed that I was as sexless as a baby, or a block of wood.)
Anyway, I was sure the deal was broken. He'd soon get sick of fruitless pleas, or I'd get bored of futile elusion, the whole affair would go up in smoke and I'd have to go home with my v-card - and then I'd REALLY never lose it.
The opposite happened. ‘I'm really good!’ was his final attempt at persuasion, and several fun, pressure-free months passed before I turned twenty.
Hang on, twenty?
Cue crisis mode.
Not only was I now an old, wrinkly hag, but still a virgin too?! I found this state of being completely unacceptable, especially after five rums-and-cokes the night before my birthday. I sent several shamefully obvious text messages (‘Dónde estás? Es mi última noche con 19 años ;)’ and ended up in my not-quite-boyfriend's bed. I was drunk, high, and on Valium. Even though I'd quit drugs upon my arrival in Europe, I wanted to ensure relaxation so as not to panic at the last second. To my dismay, my precautions failed me, and, due to the technical aspects of (extra-) virginity, the attempt was unsuccessful. I was annoyed. I had finally opened my arms to sex, and it had run off cackling in the other direction! AND I was twenty!
The next weekend was his birthday. We got wasted, went to the worst discoteca ever, and tried again (not, obviously, at the discoteca). It hurt, and, in an embarrassing freak occurrence, I couldn't stop laughing. Two words: blue balls. Two more words: nose bleed. As in, he got one. Thus, the question of feminine bleeding will forever remain a mystery.
The third attempt invited complete success, and I had no idea what I'd been so obsessed with for the past four years. I felt exactly the same, except I no longer felt compelled to create outlandish plans for my virginity loss. (I'm certain, however, that I will die of regret if I ever meet a unicorn.) A week later, I inserted my first tampon. Wow, cool, I thought happily. Sex is great!
I spoke too soon. My sexy Spanish lover and I have done the dirty several times since, and I'm decidedly underwhelmed. Even though I'm an intercourse n00b and my asexuality is still at large, I'm tempted to blame my partner in premarital sin. Perhaps I've been deluded by the media to believe that sex shouldn't just be a series of rapid thrusts and a condom.

‘Por qué te ries?!’ he asked recently, slowing from jackhammer to jackrabbit speed. He didn't seem impressed by the return of my giggles. ‘Don't worry, just ignore it,’ I said in English. ‘Pretend I'm not here!’

I found my own joke so amusing that I continued to laugh for another several minutes. I even thought of it a few times later in the evening and dissolved into further chortling.
Luckily, my expectations were never high. I'm happy that my good story came as painlessly as possible: pressure-free, and somewhere between the solitude of a one-night stand and the suffocation of true love. All in all, sex hasn't been a total letdown -- but I do wish it would pick up. Good sex is sort of the prize for finishing the race, isn't it?
Thus I exist for the rest of eternity without my most treasured possession. No word yet on the magic powers, but right now I've got enough to worry about, like who will become my SECOND sexual partner once I return to the States. ‘Hey, hi, have I told you I'm a possibly asexual former drug addict and I've only ever slept with one person...?’
To be continued...’

The Vow

When I first read this story, I assumed that The Vow in question had been made in response to parental pressure. I was wrong:

‘Both of my parents knew about my vow and both of them, whom have not agreed on a single thing since their divorce in 1996, told me square in the face that I would not make it. Neither my mother, nor my father believed it was humanly possible to hold off till marriage. I think my parents are happy that I chose to abstain but I don't think it is because of the normal reasons. They just had one less worry in the world. I wouldn't be getting pregnant.’

No, I am actually talking about a more powerful vow than that. This is the vow made between children, children on the threshold of adult hood with idealism, adventures and a bright future laid out in front of them. The world is full of possibilities when we are teenagers. Making a pact to do – or not to do something can seem like a good idea when we are young.

These sorts of pacts can be enduring. I have a friend who decided to give up meat with her best friend at the age of fifteen. To this day, a full twenty-seven years after two teenage girls decided to forego the eating of animals, neither of them has eaten meat.

Of course giving up meat and foregoing sex are two different things and our needs change as we grow and develop. Although I did once hear a story about a vegetarian who had a very nasty bicycle accident. As she lay shocked and bruised in the road, the very real possibility of being crushed to death by a ten-ton lorry having just flashed before her face, a bizarre feeling overtook her. She felt an almost overwhelming urge to eat a big fat juicy piece of meat. Which she did and, by all accounts, she felt a lot better for it. Is there something in meat that helps humans to recover from shock? I don’t know. Was it a strange, almost primordial sense of self-preservation, i.e. I almost got killed therefore I must eat something that once lived? One can only guess.

I digress. At fifteen years old, we are taking a stance. We are laying down the law, our law, as we see fit. Making a vow is a way of asserting ourselves, of imprinting our authority upon ourselves, our parents, over anyone who will bother to listen and telling them, this is who I am. 

The trick, of course, is to recognize when the vow ceases to be useful to us because, let me tell you, at some point, that vow is going to become a millstone around your neck. Life changes, we change and situations change. Continuing to do something that you decided to do when you were fifteen is a bit like trying to squeeze into your childhood clothes when you are a teenager. They don’t fit. Don’t even get me started on True Love Waits and the concept of teenage girls promising their virginity to their fathers. People should be allowed to develop in the way that nature intended. If that involves sexual activity, so be it. In Sarah’s case, it didn’t and that is an equally valid choice.

Choice is the optimum word here. Not parents. Or churches. Sarah made her choice of her own free will. No parents were involved in the taking of this vow! Which is the way it should be. Sarah is also grown up enough to know when the choice she has made no longer serves any purpose. Is she planning on being a nun? No. Has she finished her schooling and not got pregnant? Yes. Excellent. Time to move on. The fact is that Sarah probably has saved herself a whole bunch of heartache by not having to deal with the intensity of a sexual relationship at a young age. But at 23 years old, she is more than ready to jump in at the deep end.

The best part of this story is that the opportunity to jump into metaphorical swimming pools comes a whole lot quicker than you think it would. ‘Do keep in touch’ I said. ‘When the time comes, I would love to know how this story develops’. Three weeks later, part two landed in my lap but I’ll save that for next time.

Part One – The Vow

'Growing up does many things. We love, we lose, we learn but most of all we gain a better understanding of our own choices. For me, I have learned that one choice was once right and that now it’s time to change my theory according to life, not past ideals, not personal histories but reality as it is now. The vow started as celibacy, moved to abstinence and is now something else…

My friends and I took the vow around 13. Like typical naive girls we actually believed it would work. I believe what kick started the conversation with my friends was gossip about a few girls our age that were pregnant and had dropped out of school. We were, and are, very educated and so, to us, leaving school was unthinkable. The idea for the vow spawned from there. We all made the pact that we would not become a teenage statistic and we wouldn't let anything stop us from graduation. By the time we graduated high school everyone but myself had broken it.

I saw how miserable sex was making most of my peers so I figured I made a great choice. There was pregnancy; disease, failed relationships and extra pressure that to me, were needless.

At 17, I really began to take my vow seriously and when I received a beautiful ring for graduation, I vowed to keep my promise even more. It worked out great because I was too busy with school to get involved with anyone to the point of intimacy. So no harm, no foul, no lesson. Most of my college days were spent not having a worry about sexual relationships because they never got that far.

At the age of 19, I met my first serious boyfriend. We got serious fast and desires to build a future seemed to only fuel my need to uphold my now, well-known vow. At that time in my life, I was so hung up on what other people expected of me, I continued to maintain my vow even though in my heart I saw my reasons had lost validity.

I always said I wanted to wait until my husband’s ring replaced my fathers, but I have come to realize that in my heart I only wanted to wait for the moment to feel right. Like the heart of my ring I wanted to wait until someone set my heart on fire so that it sparkled like the gem held within the setting. Funny that a loss causes our eyes to become open because I know I had that and even though in the end it didn’t work out, at that time it was real. I always say live life without regrets. Do I regret not sleeping with him? No. Am I happy with my choice to uphold something I no longer personally supported? Well that answer to that is also no.

It’s hard to put in words where I stand today. I am proud of what I have done, I am happy with who I am and I am secure in the knowledge that my vow was valid and is now void. This does not mean I’m hopping in the sack tomorrow, but this also means that who I am today is not who I was 10 years ago. I can honestly say without a doubt in my mind that, at 23, I can make the informed decision to do something I am physically, mentally and emotionally ready for. I know the risks, I know the advantages and I know that it doesn’t change anything. I will still be me; the world will not view me differently. Most importantly I know I will be right.

Life is too short to hold off on your firsts because you never know what tomorrow brings. I recently got a new tattoo that reads my philosophy on life: ‘Doubt nothing Cherish everything Live without regret.’ I fully intend on upholding that for the rest of my life. I will always be Sarah no matter what physical changes or choices I make.'

In-to-me-see

This story touches a tender spot in my heart and I’ll tell you why. Aaron makes the same mistake that many of us do - I include myself in this group - of confusing two quite critical components in our lives: intimacy and sex. We think that they are one and the same. Newsflash for the younger generation and any older ones lagging behind: they are most definitely not.
I used to think that intimacy meant having sex, albeit quite a long time ago. Which was probably why I often considered my first time a load of rubbish. But with time and the ability to articulate myself, I can see what the problem was. It lacked intimacy. Handsome he may have been, French and sexy, he certainly was, but I hardly knew him and I was too proud to tell him that I was still a virgin. Unsurprisingly, this did not make for an ‘intimate’ (or even fun) experience.
True intimacy requires us to step out of our comfort zones and be honest about what, and who we are, which in Aaron’s case, is totally petrified. No, seriously, I am not suggesting that you tell your partner that you crap yourself every time they get within ten yards of you, choose your words a little more carefully than that, but honesty is very endearing. If you can find it in yourself to step out of the comfort zone and come clean so to speak, you might find yourself surprised by the results.
From a random straw poll conducted amongst girlfriends, ‘relieved’ was the most common answer I got when I asked them how they would have felt, had one of the teenage horn-bags they had encountered back in the day ever admitted that they were actually quite scared about what was going to happen next. Being honest breaks the ice and ultimately it brings us closer together. If Aaron can find it in himself to be honest, I think he might find the real deal: bona fide intimacy.
Aaron. Age 18.
‘I’m sure you must get a billion stories like this, but I need to write this for myself just as much as I want to send it to you. Hopefully, we will both learn a little :]
My name is Aaron, an 18-year old virgin fresh into college in Texas. It took me until right now to figure out that I really look forward to sex, but at the same time, I am terrified by it. Of course I’m a college male and I automatically have urges, but I’m so scared of being vulnerable before someone.
I was raised in a Christian community (reading your site, there seems to be a lot who find problems from this) and have always promised abstinence till marriage. More than anything though, I look forward to the emotional side of sex: I want to feel fundamentally connected to someone in a beautiful way. I want to love, and learn to love, and I don’t know if sex is a part of that process, a reward for achieving it, or some only slightly related event. 
About a month ago, an ex-girlfriend and I agreed to a ‘friends-with-benefits’ relationship which was horrible! Some part of me really disagreed with the whole idea of it but I was kinda pissed off at life so I took what good feeling I could get. We ended up slyly messing around in my bed while my roommate was on his computer, oblivious. A few minutes into it, I was lying next to her and she stuck her hand down my pants and grabbed me. It was the first time anyone has ever really touched me there, and for a minute I was almost breaking down inside.
I felt empty. I was simply lying face down beside her, her hand casually slipped down the front of my jeans, and I couldn’t move. It was as if she had ripped off the protective layers of my soul and I was bare before her. I felt humiliated to myself, and the feeling of pure vulnerability began to drown me. I hated it, oh god, I hated it, and for a while I hated her. I hated being exposed and open to the world and to myself, and at that moment I felt purely pathetic and I couldn’t move a muscle, I just lay there and shook a little to myself with her hand firmly attached. The next day I informed her that I just couldn’t handle being around her for a little while, and we didn’t talk or hang out for two weeks or so.
So now I know I have a problem of sorts, I truly want to love and be loved, whether sex is a part of that or not, but I am now even more terrified of being vulnerable before someone, especially after somewhat experiencing it.
Now, weeks after my little incident with said ex-girlfriend, I am starting to date a beautiful young lady here at school and we have already begun to get a little physical with each other. But really, if it ever came to deciding whether or not to have sex, or even just to let her touch me intimately, I might be too frightened to consider. I know though, that after our making out sessions are drawing to an end and we just lay in each other’s arms, I really want to get closer to her and sex may be something we eventually consider. I know that only I will know when I’m ready for sex, but is there a way to combat the feelings I experienced in my little episode mentioned earlier? I want to learn to love, but I don’t know if sex is necessarily a part of that. It seems I’m just a college boy full of questions. Who would’ve thought?  Lol.’
* All names changed to protect identity.

Box Fresh...

This story brings to mind ‘the Monro theory’, a little something that I’ve been working on for the last few years. It’s also known as the ‘don’t save things for best’ theory and I’ll tell you why.  A few years ago, I was burgled.  It wasn’t the first time this had happened but it felt different for one reason. I realized that I had a whole bunch of things that I never wore because I was always ‘saving them for best’. 
Dresses, shoes and pristine trainers, still in their boxes and saved for that day when you want to wear the perfect white training shoe. Let me tell you something. Number one, someone, somewhere on the Harrow Road is wearing those trainers and it isn’t me, and number two, today is as good a day as any to wear perfect shoes. Don’t save things for best. Take them out of the box, put them on your goddam feet and wear them. Because if you don’t, someone else might. And then you’ll feel like a big chump.
What has this got to do with virginity loss? Quite a lot actually because there is something to be learnt from this tale. Whilst I am not suggesting that you get out there and lose your virginity to the first stranger you meet, I would like to suggest this: saving it for best does not account for the vagaries of life. It does not allow us to experiment, to mess up and make amends, to experience life with all its ups, downs, ins, outs and whatever other way you want to do it. In short, it doesn’t allow us to take life by the scruff of the neck and grow from the experience.
Losing your virginity is the first step in the right direction. It might be ok, you might even get lucky and enjoy it, but if you don’t, it doesn’t matter because there is plenty of time to improve your game. Don’t shoot for perfection.
That’s what I enjoyed about this story. I like the fact that its author knows this. She is prepared for the fact that her adventures could be pleasurable, fun or emotional – or perhaps all three at the same time. Conversely, she also understands that some of it might not - but she takes responsibility for herself and dives into the melee with the best piece of armour that money can buy: an optimistic attitude.
Make the best of this moment. The past is gone, the future doesn’t exist yet. This is the moment that we do have. Live it like you mean it.
Mary. Aged 26, from North Carolina.
‘Hey Kate,
To start with, I wasn't raised religiously, but I became an evangelical Christian when I was sixteen.  So I grew up thinking of sex as a natural, value-neutral thing. I looked forward to having it, but it was still something that was a long way off and thus not too worrisome.
Joining the church changed that.  I bought into the idea that ‘good Christians’ remained pure and waited until marriage.  When I went to college, I immersed myself in another evangelical church, where I basically only knew church people who also felt the same way about relationships and sex. 
Although it was common to hear couples talking about ‘struggling with purity’, the public expectation was that everyone was waiting till marriage.  My friends today are shocked when I tell them how many of my friends got married so young, right out of college, but when you're waiting (or you at least planned to wait); it begins to make a lot more sense.
I never really had a problem with this system because I believed in it.  I thought waiting and not messing around with casual encounters was going to save me a lot of emotional and spiritual angst.  And to some degree, I do still see the wisdom of that, or at least I understand the reasoning. 
That changed after I graduated and started working.  I got involved with a co-worker at my new job pretty quickly - it was kind of a new world where I didn't have to go through a long ‘getting to know you’ process simply to make out with someone.  But I was still attached to the church and I told him straight away that I wasn't going to sleep with him.  I felt like that was the best for everyone - no surprises later on.  He wasn't keen on it however, and every effort I made to continue the relationship always broke on that choice - that I wasn't willing to give him what he wanted. 
This earned me a sort of status as a ‘church girl’ who wasn't going to give it up, even though many of my life choices in other respects were edging away from the church.  A major turning point for me was going to grad school in another state.  Although now I look at it as breaking free of the church, I just continued the process of slipping away from the church lifestyle or culture and its value judgements. I never made an out and out decision that I was going to lose my virginity, but I became more amenable to losing it in certain situations. 
Partly that was helped by becoming more confident, interested in non-church people, a part of a culture where sex was accepted or expected, and also by having a handful of casual encounters with escalating sexual intimacy.
The majority of these hook ups have taken place in the last few monthss, and since they've built on each other, they've also built my confidence in myself, my desirability, and my attractiveness, (although the casual/one night stand nature of them can also cause my confidence to fluctuate).  These are the experiences that make me start questioning the status of my virginity and the definition of losing one's virginity in general. 
When I think about my own virginity in the context of these experiences, I realize that, for me, talking about virginity in terms of ‘losing something’ is totally backwards. Rather, with each encounter, I feel more like I'm building up my sexual experience. 
In this realm, there were many firsts, which were always accompanied by a little jolt and a realization that I had a decision to make about whether I was ready for that step: the first time a guy touched me intimately, the first time I took my bra off, the first time I was half naked, the first time I was wholey naked, the first time I touched someone else intimately.
Each of these experiences and the ones in between were like taking steps forward, learning or gaining an understanding of my body and how it worked with other peoples' bodies.  In this sense, I never felt like I was losing anything, but rather crossing developmental benchmarks that are good and natural and which it seems we are all meant to experience at some point.
In other ways, I do understand the idea of loss.  Each time I crossed one of these benchmarks or made the choice to allow them, that jolt was like a bell saying ‘Now you've done it; there will never be a first time for that again’ and I think some part of my brain catalogues the situation and compares it to how I thought it would be or how I thought it would happen. 
Now, post-church, that comparison does not invite self-shame or a feeling of innocence lost.  Mostly it's more of a feeling of, ‘Oh, that's different than I expected, but not bad...’ That definitely wasn't always the case, but that's what makes me glad to be where I am now emotionally.
I realize now that I actually think of many of those intimate milestones as fractions of the whole sexual experience, which are not necessarily sex when done alone, but culminate in the final experience.  In terms of having sex and ‘losing my virginity’, each first time was like losing a little piece of it.  As for the most recent experience I had, when I experienced penetration but not orgasm for the first time, I do think of that as the biggest chunk to date.  
Nevertheless, I think of that more as ‘breaking the seal’ than losing my virginity.  Right now I'd say I'm probably only 15% a virgin, but that my self status as a virgin, emotionally, is still intact. It's this emotional virginity that I'm actually glad to say I still have, for myself.  Most of my sexual encounters have taken place on a one-night-stand basis under the influence of alcohol and are clearly not meant to result in relationship consequences the next day.  While I want to be in a relationship, I don't regret that the experiences I've had have happened in this way.  Nevertheless, that mental, emotional, and spiritual image of having sex, really, for the first time in a committed relationship stays with me. 
I think that's the kind of circumstances that I will need to have to really and truly relax and enjoy good reciprocal sex.  Until that scenario comes along, I don't think I'm going to sit idly on the sidelines, but rather, continue to build up my experience.  I don't expect it all to be great or even good, but I look forward to trying it all out and moving toward the internal ‘breaking of the seal’, now that it's outwardly occurred.
Thanks for listening to my story, and providing a forum for other people's as well.Mary.’

 

No introduction necessary…

And I wasn’t going to write one. But I am an unveiling an unusual creature today. A woman who knows that ‘who I am as an individual is not defined by my virginity’. A radical concept perhaps and if more people thought about it, ‘The Virginity Project’ might not exist.

Isn’t it funny how times change? Think of the stories of old, stories from people who barely knew the facts of life when they got married. It wasn’t that long ago. In the space of fifty years, the concept of virginity has been turned on its head. In today’s society, you could be forgiven for thinking that virginity is a nasty disease. Dis-ease, never a truer word spoken.

Perhaps the media landscape has pushed us. MTV, R&B, sexy ladies, sexy boys, cars, advertising and the promises made by the purchase of expensive products. Buy this and you’ll get laid, get loved, get sexy. The truth is that we don’t need any of this to be sexy, or, more to the point, sexual. We are animals, we already are sexual.

And there are a million and one ways to be sexual, none of which need involve the act of penetrative sex - that which we decree to be the loss of virginity. It’s just that somewhere along the line we convinced ourselves otherwise. Well, all of us that is except for Sally.

‘Dear Kate,

I loved reading your blog because I'm a big fan of oral history and it's great from that perspective, but secretly, I really enjoyed it 'cos I'm still a virgin at the age of twenty-six.

I don't have any story to tell. Nothing hideous ever happened to me as a child; I was a happy (if slightly odd) adolescent. I home-schooled throughout most of my teenage years and the two years I spent in an alternative high school were mostly spent gaining confidence around people my own age -  sex wasn't even on the cards at that point. 

And then I spent ages in university figuring that I'd meet someone who I really liked and who I wanted to hop into bed with. And I met one guy who was great, but he turned out to be gay (despite the alternative school, I have no gaydar whatsoever). And there was this other guy, but he already had a girlfriend, and I stand sternly by the Commandment, 'thou shalt not endeavour to break up other peoples' relationships just so thou canst get laid.' And then I wondered if maybe I was on the other bus, because generally, I just didn't seem to meet that many men I was bothered about. 

And I still don't.  I meet a lot of men who I really like, who I enjoy hanging out with and chatting to, and mostly I don't feel like I have any difficulty communicating with them. But the litmus test always is, 'Can I picture myself in bed with this person', and the answer is usually 'NO'.

I've put far too much time and effort and occasionally tears (not to mention sweat and, erm, other bodily secretions at certain times of the month) into trying to figure out why I'm so picky. Is it biological? Is it a mental or emotional block - am I one big neuroses without realizing it? Are all my reasons for never dating anyone (I'm too busy with grad school/I'm only in this city temporarily/I don't want to have to factor my life around someone else when I don't know what I want to do after I'm done school) all actually excuses for being frigid, which I don't think I am, and, uh, the downstairs neighbours might attest to that fact if you pressed them...

Am I a commitment-phobe? Do I just come up with reasons for the unsuitability of people my friends want to set me up with because I'm not ready to have a proper relationship? (Although to be fair, would you, as a fairly committed atheist, date an otherwise very sweet man who was also very, very Christian in a Calvinist sort of way?...that was the latest adventure in the world of non-dating, although I would like to keep the aforementioned man as a friend.)

Or, and this is the slightly radical bit here, because nobody seems to want to hear this reason no matter how many times I tell them: am I a single virgin because, despite the fact that there are a vast number of people on the face of this planet who I might be into, the vast majority of them apparently don't reside in this relatively small city?  Why is it so difficult and seemingly taboo for a girl to just not fancy anyone? Or to think that maybe, just maybe, she's not bothered about men or having a relationship because she wants to, I don't know, travel? Finish school, and, goddamit, do a good job at it?  Or spend Saturday night eating popcorn and watching Doctor Who and gossiping with the upstairs neighbours? Or work on that one-act play she wants to enter into a local grassroots festival competition? Or spend two hours a day, every day, rigourously figuring out how to sing and play the fiddle at the same time?

And, quite frankly, a relationship would interfere with all of those. It would make certain activities (like travelling and masturbation) much more enjoyable, but it would curtail the time spent on others - and I don't know if I want to give all of those activities up, and compromise my life to fit with another person's right now. (Or, you know, maybe I'm just scared of change and then we're back to the whole neuroses thing again...)

Okay, I should stop drivelling on - if you want to put this on the Virginity Project you can. I just wanted to say 'Thanks', really. It's taken me a long time to understand that who I am as an individual isn't defined by my virginity. It's part of me, and I still fret and fuss over it, but it isn't the sum of my parts. And I'm sure that there's any number of excellently filthy puns to be made on my unfortunate wording of that one, so I'll leave you to it...But really, thanks. It's nice to feel that I'm not completely alone with this one. And if you post this, you can leave my real name on it.

Thanks for listening.

Best,

Sally’

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.’

Harsh. 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’.

Excuse me?

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 an intriguing 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’ nonsense. 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 (so called - just thought I'd throw that in there) '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!