The idea of virginity has always confused me. And that society has put so much value on it. For thousands of years women have been held to this ridiculous standard. That her worth is somehow connected to a penis in her vagina, or lack thereof. Women from almost every civilization on the planet were shamed, killed, or forgotten about if they lost their virginity before marriage. Some cultures treat rape to be the woman's fault, not the rapists. And they will punish the woman for the rest of her life if she gets raped. But not the rapist. This idea of virginity being something of any value has destroyed entire generations of women. So, I propose that we let virginity die and replace it with a new term. One that is empowering and autonomous. The Sexual Debut!
I forget where I first heard this term, but I didn't come up with it. I've been seeing it pop up lately on social media. But it solves many of the issues with virginity. Namely, that virginity is tired up in worth. That it's a choice not something you lose. And that it is even sensitive to people who have experienced childhood sexual trauma.
When someone asks me when I lost my virginity, it can be triggering. Because the first time a penis was in my vagina I was between 10 and 12 maybe (my memories are foggy from this era, so the age is tough to determine). But it wasn't my choice. It was non-consensual. And I dissociated the memories for years. But if someone asked me when my sexual debut was, well that's an empowering question! I was 16, and I made the very intentional choice to have consensual sex. The sex wasn't that great. But the choice was powerful.
As many as 1 in 5 girls, and 1 in 20 boys in America has experienced sexual violence or abuse in childhood (Child Sexual Abuse Statistics – The National Center for Victims of Crime). So, it's really not that hard to imagine that virginity can be triggering for a lot of them. Especially, when you attach value to that word. I refuse to let any person who has been abused against their will to be defined by some word used to control us.
So, why is virginity even a thing? Well, it all started with the agricultural revolution and the invention of private property. Before this, humans had lots of sex with anyone they wanted. It's well researched now that early humans were not very monogamous, and parentage wasn't important since the whole village raised the kids. But, soon enough, land had to pass to someone in the event of the death of the owner. And the way it shook out was that it got passed to the oldest boy. But in the old days you could only prove the matrilineage of any person because you literally came out of her. There was really no way to tell that the children were the mans. So, virginity became something of value. If the parents of a young girl could say for certain that she hadn't been "defiled" by a penis before marriage, then the man could take ownership of her and ensure that she never fucked anyone else under his care as well.
But it didn't really matter if the man fucked anyone else. Because you could never prove it, and he didn't get pregnant. So, the woman's virginity at marriage took on a value for property's sake. If you could say with some degree of certainty that your wife hadn't fucked anyone else, then the children were yours and you could pass your wealth and land down to your oldest son with her. This still happens today in many countries around the world, even the US.
And some countries take it even further. In China, the Middle East, India, and some African countries, the woman's virginity is something that is not only highly protected by her parents, but also could get the woman killed, cut off, or shamed if she loses it, even if she is raped. Ghosts were a term in China for a woman who was raped. She lost all honor and respect from her family, but they also must take care of her for the rest of her life, because no man would ever want her. These ghosts would live in the family house, but people would rarely speak to them, they must eat at the kids table at family meals, and if someone asked about her, the family would say that they never had a daughter.
Even worse, in some countries, especially India and the Middle East, if a woman was raped, they would make her marry her rapist because she was clearly of no worth to any other man. And they even saw it as more of a punishment to the rapist than the person raped. Because we put any value at all on this idea of virginity, women have suffered around the world for thousands of years.
I'm disgusted by this.
I think when you choose to have consensual sex with another human in the world, that it is a beautiful moment in time. An empowering choice. An autonomous exercise. Or even just an exploration of what's possible. But it has absolutely no value on the life of the human. This is a personal choice, and one that government, family, and society shouldn't butt their ugly heads into for any reason.
It has also spawned a new movement in the West of so called "high value women". Weak men must place themselves higher than women in some way so they can feel powerful. So, they decided they were in charge of what determined that a woman was high value to them or not. Their definition is a virgin, or someone with a really low body count (sexual partners in their lifetime), someone in their 20's, someone who doesn't believe in the female orgasm, and someone who doesn't have their own hopes and dreams and will just serve the man. This is what value is to them. A young, dumb, girl who doesn't know what good sex is, so his mediocre dick feels like something special. This is pathetic.
If you can't handle a woman who knows a thing or two about sex, then you might not be that great at it yourself. I can't imagine being so weak that you have to be on the side that tries to argue against female orgasm, because you know you will never make her come.
As a society, we need to step up and say that virginity means nothing, otherwise weak men will always try to take power from women and femmes because of it. Sexual debut is a personal, consensual, powerful, autonomous choice that everyone gets to make. And so, if we can start using language around sexuality that is empowering, then these weak men can go back to their little caves alone once again.
INSPIRED ACTION: I challenge you to start evolving your vocabulary around virginity so that everyone who hears you speak about it can be empowered! Think of how it can change the world. And that only happens one person at a time.
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