The Definition and Meaning Of Virginity Loss
For many girls and women, virginity is an important concept. However, people have different definitions of the concept. There are various opinions about what constitutes virginity loss. The meanings of virginity to different people also vary quite a bit. These variations are the result of many factors including one�s culture and the amount of exposure to sex education.
Defining Who is a Virgin and What is Virginity Loss
To evaluate the meaning of virginity we must first be able to define who is a virgin and who is not a virgin. When doing this, questions are raised such as: Does having oral or anal sex constitute virginity loss? How do homosexuals lose their virginity? The most frequent definition of virginity is penetration of the penis into the vagina. This makes many gays and lesbians, by definition, still virgins.
The Merriam-Webster Medical Dictionary defines a virgin as �one who has not had sexual intercourse� and sexual intercourse as:1 : heterosexual intercourse involving penetration of the vagina by the penis : COITUS
2 : intercourse involving genital contact between individuals other than penetration of the vagina by the penis
This definition still leaves a lot of ambiguity about virginity loss. It is open enough to allow alternate versions of virginity loss.
Everyone in the sample taken by Laura Carpenter (2005) agreed that if a person had penile-vaginal sex before having any other type of genital sex, they would lose their virginity. At least some type of genital contact had to be involved in any case where virginity was lost. No one in this sample agreed that just manual stimulation was enough to no longer be a virgin (Carpenter, 2005: 47). This idea that penile-vaginal intercourse is what constitutes losing ones virginity is not unique to Carpenter�s study. �A girl becomes a woman by virtue of being penetrated by a man� (Stiritz/Schiller, 2003: 1136). This also shows the idea that first sex is a step in a process, which will be discussed later.
Some people will engage in oral and anal sex so that they can remain �true virgins.� These activities are merely thought of as foreplay leading up to the real event of vaginal sex. French and Dishion (2003:310) found that �many of the adolescents who were virgins at baseline were engaging in other forms of sexual activity.� Many of the people who considered virginity a gift had engaged in progressive sexual behavior pervious to loss of virginity (Carpenter, 2005:64). Schuster, Bell, and Kanouse (1996) found that 35% of people considered to be virgins by the common definition had done this (Houts, 2005: 1086).
It is even harder to define sex and virginity loss for someone who is lesbian, gay or bisexual. �Opinions differed as to whether oral and anal intercourse could result in virginity loss, depending especially on sexual identity� (Carpenter, 2005:47). Two-thirds of the gay men and all of the bisexual men in Carpenter�s study thought that a gay man would lose his virginity if he engaged in fellatio with another. This too however was not a consensus. Opinions on what constituted virginity loss had to do with the personal preferences or the person giving the opinions (Carpenter, 2005:48). Cunnilingus with a woman, but not digital penetration, constituted virginity loss by all of the lesbian and bisexual women in Carpenter�s study (Carpenter, 2005:48). These acts for most heterosexual people were not enough sexual activity to no longer be a virgin.
Heterosexuals were much more likely to consider alternative forms of virginity loss if they knew someone who was gay or lesbian and had struggled with the definition of virginity loss.
It shows how much heterosexuality is thought of as the norm in America that most people don�t even think about alternate forms of virginity loss for gays and lesbians (Carpenter, 2005:44).
Some people only consider virginity to be lost if it takes place under certain conditions. The mood or settings have to be right. The perfect partner or perfect circumstances have to be in place for some people to consider themselves to be losing their virginity. Carpenter talks of a girl that she interviewed who did not consider a time when her boyfriend partially inserted his penis into her vagina to be the time that she lost her virginity because the experience did not live up to the ideal that she had in her head (Carpenter, 2005:47). People whose first sexual experiences were a result of rape or incest were still considered virgins by many. In Carpenter�s study, a bit more than half thought that you could still be a virgin if the sex was forced. The others did not believe this for physiological reasons (Carpenter, 2005:51). Carpenter said, �the women that I spoke with were considerable more likely than the men to exclude nonconsensual sex from their definitions of virginity loss� (Carpenter, 2005:52). This might be because women are much more likely than men to be raped so they can sympathize better. Some believe that a woman can only lose her virginity if it is taken against her will (Stiritz/Schiller, 2003: 1144). This is a feminist idea given that a women never truly loses her virginity unless it is stolen away.
There are also a rising number of people who believe themselves to be born again or secondary virgins. These are people who have previously lost their virginity and once again become �virgins� abstaining from sex until love or marriage. Is it possible for a person to become a virgin again after he or she has already lost it? In the Carpenter study, �Half believed that under no circumstances could a person become a virgin, or lose their virginity, more than once� (Carpenter, 2005:53). Once again, women were more likely to accept a more psychological version of virginity. They were �twice as likely as men to contend that a person potentially resume her or his virginity� (Carpenter, 2005:53).
As with most sexual preferences, the ideas and opinions changed for many of the people over time. Almost two-fifths of the women and men interviewed in Carpenter�s study had at some point redefined or thought about redefining what they thought virginity was (Carpenter, 2005:54). About a third changed their beliefs because of changes in their lives (Carpenter, 2005:12).
Younger people also have more liberal views when it comes to many aspects regarding virginity. Those who were in the younger group of people in Carpenter�s sample were more likely to view that there was the �possibility of virginity loss between same-sex partners, to exclude nonconsensual sex from their definitions, and to accept the possibility of resuming virginity� (Carpenter, 2005:55). Changing times have brought about different ideas and values about sex. The sexual revolution of the 1960s and the HIV/AIDS epidemic in the 1980s have brought about very different attitudes. Fewer women today are virgins than previous generations and as time goes by there are less gender dichotomized distinctions.
Race, ethnicity and religion also factored into people�s definitions of what constituted sex. No one in the sample that Carpenter took thought that if a girl�s hymen was broken without any sexual contact would she no longer be a virgin. However, some of the interviewees said that they knew people who felt this way, including a nurse who had had patients who feared a pelvic examine would make it so that they were no longer virgins (Carpenter, 2005:47).
Some cultures still strongly believe that the breaking of the hymen is what signifies virginity loss. This has lead to some plastic surgeons performing hymen reconstructions. Part of the sample that Carpenter interviewed were conservative Protestants who �claim that almost every non-genital sexual activity, including kissing and perhaps even looking at sexually explicit magazines or movies, its tantamount to virginity loss� (Carpenter, 2005:54).
The Meaning of Virginity
People hold different meanings for sex. Virginity has many different meanings in our society. In Laura Carpenter�s writings, she talks about three different metaphors given to virginity loss: a gift, a stigma, and a step in a process. Half of the people that she interviewed thought that it was a gift, a third thought of it as a stigma and over half thought that it was part of a process (Carpenter, 2005:11). People who agreed with the same metaphor tended to have �strikingly similar approaches to virginity loss, sharing distinctive sets of expectations, preferences and practices� (Carpenter, 2005:11).
Traditionally the �gift� position of sex has been thought of as being a more female-based metaphor, but actually it is a lot less gender dichotomized than one might think. In Carpenter�s study, three-fifths of women felt this way compared to only a third of men (Carpenter, 2002:353). �Gifters,� people who view virginity as a gift, are usually open about their virginity with people they date and friends. (Carpenter, 2005:64).
Carpenter said that �many gifters also believed that it would be ideal for a couple to lose their virginity together� (Carpenter, 2005:63). Many people have sex in order to strengthen a relationship or become closer to their partner, this becoming magnified when both people are virgins. Gifters, more than any one else, had sex for the first time with other virgins. They felt it was a sort of gift to their partner in an act to strengthen a bond and increase the feelings. The sex establishes the relationship as being something more than just friendship (Houts, 2005:1085). �A woman loses something when she has sex against her will, but when she wants it, she gains something�there is a magical sense about sex� (Stiritz/Schiller, 2003: 1144).
People who view virginity as a gift thought that sexual experience should entail giving, receiving and reciprocating (Carpenter, 2005: 59). This may be why some girls give their virginity away as a gift even though they may not really want to have sex. �O�Sullivan and Allgeier (1998)� speculate that engaging in such sex acts may satisfy a partner�s needs, promote intimacy, and avoid relational tensions� (Houts, 2005:1084). People who are older may also view their virginity as a gift because they realize the value in it and have waited so long to find the right person. They think of it as being more �than just a vagina encompassing a penis, sexual intercourse may symbolize a bond of intimacy between partners that should only occur if the commitment is right� (Houts, 2005:1097).
Viewing sex as a gift is also now being shown in the media as increasing numbers of people are no longer waiting for marriage to have sex. This can be seen in these lyrics by the band Sense Field in their song �Save Yourself�:
So many times we just give it away to someone who, couldn't even
remember your name/Could you save yourself for someone who,loves
you for you,loves me for me/Give it away to someone who someone
who will cherish your name.
�Conversely, slightly more than half of the men interpreted virginity as a stigma, compared with one-fifth of the women� (Carpenter, 2002:353). Most of the stigmatized shared their status of virgin to few people who they were close to (Carpenter, 2005: 103). Most stigmatized thought virginity loss was deeply humiliating and disempowering� (Carpenter, 2002:357). For most of those who shared this view did not need or want a relationship or love to lose their virginity. About half of these people in Carpenter�s sample lost their virginity to a friend, casual acquaintance, or even a stranger (Carpenter, 2005:105). �Women suffered much less than men because women are looked upon with a more positive light when they are virgins and since men are more likely to have sex outside of marriage they could lose their virginity much easier� (Carpenter, 2002:358). People who might think that they were gay often thought of their virginity as a stigma and losing their virginity to a person of the opposite sex could help them lose two stigmas at once. Also, the once stigmatized often changed their metaphor of virginity after they had had sex and lost their stigma (Carpenter, 2005:109). The longer a person remains a virgin the more likely they will come to view it as a stigma. �At one age it may be expected, at another celebrated, and at another it may be looked on with suspicion� (Houts, 2005:1097-1098). This representation can also be seen in the media with movies such as �The 40 Year Old Virgin,� portraying that you should be very ashamed if you are still a virgin at forty.
Conversely, Houts talks about how if a woman does chose to have sex that can also be a stigma for her because she might be labeled as a whore (Houts, 2005:1096). This goes back to the debate in our society that if a women wants to engage in sex she has to walk the fine line between being a whore and being an innocent virgin.
Those who saw virginity loss as a step in a process saw it as a vital step from childhood to adulthood. They also thought of it as a step in acquiring sexual knowledge (Carpenter, 2005:143). They thought it would be a positive experience with positive lessons to be learned. Even for some who did not enjoy the experience they thought of it as a positive experience because of what they learned (Carpenter, 2002:358). Of all the different metaphors, this one was the one that was the least gender dichotomized. People who had this viewpoint were not generally concerned whether or not they would lose their virginity because they viewed it as a natural step rather than when and with whom (Carpenter, 2005: 145). Stiritz and Schiller talked a lot about virginity taking this meaning. They said �the first sexual penetration by a penis as an irrevocable transformation to womanhood and a developmental milestone in female sexuality� (Stiritz/Schiller, 2003:1136) and that �virginity [i]s a task to be accomplished by women� (Stiritz/Schiller, 2003: 1139).
The type of sex education that people receive can have an impact on which metaphor they associate with virginity loss. Different programs in school push different metaphors. Abstinence only programs push for sex to be considered a gift and that this gift should only be given in marriage. These programs also claim that any other metaphor is wrong (Carpenter, 2005:13). These programs are typically advocated by conservative Christians (Carpenter, 2005:181). Comprehensive sex education gives the view that loss of virginity is more of a step in a process (Carpenter, 2005:13).
Also, teachings from parents can influence different people�s views on the meaning of sex. Parental influences did not have as much of an affect as most would think, however, and father-daughter relationships had the most influence (Rehnenus/Luchies, 2006: 177).
Conclusions
The definition and meaning of virginity is fluid and has changed over time. Yet, still these topics are ambiguous and not clearly defined. Differences in opinions are not as gender dichotomized as they used to be or as much as most think that they are. The definition of virginity loss is being broadened to include gays and lesbians. Also, a more psychological view of virginity is being taken. Several different meanings of virginity loss are used in our society: The view that virginity is a gift, that it is a stigma and that it is a process. Carpenter also talks about another type of metaphor which virginity is thought of as worship, described as �maintaining virginity until marriage as a way of worshipping God� (Carpenter, 2005:183). Religious teachings have an influence on the definition and meaning of virginity, but not as much as one would assume. Parents also don�t contribute as much. Different sex education programs push different metaphors of sex.
References
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