Like a Virgin

Perhaps nowhere is the phrase "one person's trash is another's treasure" more true than with regards to virginity. Especially around this age, there are those who are as eager to get it over with as their mid term exams and others who are keeping it stored away like a vintage wine, waiting for the perfect occasion to uncork the bottle. But regardless of how we view (or for many of us, viewed) our virginity, very often our thoughts on losing it or keeping it are equally irrational.

Many feel pressure to lose their virginity because they don't want to be regarded by their peers or their future partners as sexually inexperienced. We draw a thick line between those who have done it and those who have not, and it only takes one time to cross over to the other side. We delude ourselves about virginity, much in the same way as we delude ourselves about going to the gym: As long as we have the plastic membership card dangling off our key chain, we can justifiably call ourselves "gym goers". And whether we've gone once or we go everyday is seemingly irrelevant.

But just as the act of joining a gym doesn't get you in shape, the act of losing your virginity doesn't deem you sex guru. Just 'cause you picked up a guitar once and played around with the strings doesn't make you anymore of a rock star than if you never touched it at all. Not that you need to learn to play fifteen different instruments to be a bona-fide musician, but it takes lots of practice before you can call yourself skilled in the art of music.

Ironically, there are a lot of virgins who are more sexually experienced than a lot of "non-virgins". But this is a hard concept for us to grasp since we tend to view sex, virginity, and purity in very black and white terms: someone who has not had vaginal intercourse is a virgin, and someone who has, is not. By our standards, a girl who has engaged in vaginal intercourse once or twice is less virginal then Windy Sue, who, though she has never had sex, has blown half the football team and taken it from behind a couple of times. And yet we would applaud Sue for her "sexual restraint", and comment on the nobility of saving oneself for marriage.

Why is it that vaginal intercourse is the only type of sex that really counts? When we talk about our "number", we include only the number of people we have had intercourse with, not the number of people who have been up close and personal with our genitals. Oral sex, anal sex, digital sex; they all have qualifiers because they're all "sort of sex". Real, true sex, the kind that determines the status of our virginity, is vaginal intercourse, and nothing else.

So then by this definition of sex, are all homosexuals virgins? Or do we hold a double standard? That oral and anal sex mean more to gay couples than straight couples. If we believe that heterosexual couples can retain their virginity while still having all other types of sex, then aren't we also claiming that gay couples never engage in "real" sex at all?

By placing vaginal intercourse on a pedestal as the most defining and intimate sex act that two people can perform, we belittle any other type of sexual encounter. And isn't that a slippery slope: suggesting that gay couples don't reach the same level of intimacy or that their sex is somehow less meaningful? Furthermore, since sex is something we can all agree is a significant part of marriage, could the notion that gays don't have "real" sex play into some people's belief that gays shouldn't be able to have real marriages?

Before the days of reliable contraception, it makes sense that vaginal intercourse was seen as more significant, but now, given our medical advances and the disease risks associated with anal sex, the increased importance we place on vaginal intercourse seems obsolete. Yet we still assign more emotional meaning to this one sex act over any other, taking for granted that that alternate types of sex can be just as emotionally significant, can leave us feeling just as vulnerable, and can bring us just as close to our partner. Believing that vaginal intercourse is the only type of sex that really counts puts unnecessary pressure on people to engage in it, obscures the significance of other types of sex, and belittles the physical relationships of homosexuals.