I need to update this more often.

[retro_geek]

This blog entry provides some interesting food for thought. Is virginity really soley about a penis entering a vagina? Is someone who has taken time to explore personal fetishes and learn how to orgasm without penetration more of a virgin than a 12 year old who has shagged someone and knows very little about sex beyond the actual mechanics of it (the recent British news story of the 13 year old father springs to mind here)? The concept of "virgnity" is a socially created one (and one the comes with a complex set of connotations), yet it deals with the physical side of sex, reducing it to it's simplist, starkest definition. It seems almost perverse, no? I lost my virginity when I was 18 to a boy whom I had little emotion connection to (though I didn't nessacarily realise this at the time). There was no cuddling afterwards, no afterglow, no dinner or date before hand. it was physically painful (and not in a good way!) .We barely knew each other. I don't regret losing my virginity in this way, as getting the clumsiness and pain and all-round inexperience out the way with someone I didn't really care for saved me from potentially damaging and  de-romantising  relationship with someone for whom I did. But it's only in my experiences since that I've properly formed and explored my own set of kinks and attitudes towards fornication, and consequently started to enjoy it. So, even though the mechanics of the actual act noware pretty similar to what i did in my first time, I feel significantly less of a "virgin" now than I did back then. I also regularly thank my lucky stars that I wasn't born into a family of harcore Christian evlangelicals who valued "purity till marriage" and convinced me to join "the silver ring thing". Though I agree that the idea of "saving yourself" till you find someone you think you're going to spend the rest of your love life with is lovely and romantic and sweet, don't these people worry what may happen if they are not sexually compatible? If sex is such a monumental and powerful thing that it needs to be restrained until you've found the "right" person, do they not consider the posible changes it could therefore cause in people? Also, I wonder what would happen to society if the media and sex education focused less on the mechanic, carnal aspect of it, and more on the fetish, emotional, sensual side of it. Showed kids that, actually, there can be a lot more to truley losing your virginty than wether your naughty bits have touched someon else's.

Hmm. Thoughts/ discussions on any of the above, please.

Comments

[gravitystorm.livejournal.com]

i lost my physical virginity when i was twelve, but my psychological virginity to Dom... i don't care how cliché that is!

and i won't say anything about Christianity at the risk of turning this comment into a very long essay...

xxxxx

[barrysarll.livejournal.com]

I was very fortunate in having my first time with someone else where it was also her first time, and where we were really into each other and hadn't had to rush - but I've seen too many people who've kept waiting and waiting for 'someone special' past the point where that person would have to be impossibly special, and I wonder whether, in that position, I would have known myself to cut my losses and get it out of the way so I could carry on with life.

[besidethesea.livejournal.com]

A most thought-provoking entry my dear. I agree that virginity is a state of mind, and if I remember correctly, a mildly ridiculous one at that. Its a form of self-identification, but one which we only come to understand just before most people would rather it was no longer applicable - aka puberty. As such, the time during which we self-identify ourselves as virgins is almost a wholly negative one, even if we have a religious or ideological rationale by which to justify to ourselves existing in this state. A mental state of virginity is the awareness of the sexual aspect of your humanity as unexplored. A drunken fumble is not necessarily going to resolve this. I would agree with you regarding the necessity to explore your sexuality before the mental switch from virgin to non-virgin can occur. I couldn't really say when I began to consider myself a full adult, and not a virgin, but it certainly wasn't the second I lost my virginity, though I must say that it was a perfectly alright experience... :D

TL;DR - Orgasms are good.

[xandratheblue.livejournal.com]

Excuse me answering this so late...one of those things which I meant to get around to at some point.

I lost my physical virginity to a guy who was perfectly all right, but wasn't as "special" as I hoped it would be. After sex with him...I didn't have straight sex with anyone else for a long time. As much as RFine has been discussed, in some ways I lost my emotional, and arguably due to erection problems in Transformer's Boy, physical virginity to him. But then again, by that point I very much didn't have a "virgin" mindset, indeed, part of the appeal with RFine was the fact that I was taking him for the first time, going at his initial pace, though, in reality, we probably had equal sexual experience.

I think when it comes to sex and teens, there seems to be this idea that sex is this brilliant, wonderful thing which takes one from feeling inadequate and young to confident and knowledgeable. Certainly the constant couples during high-school may have added to this image. But in reality, instead of making one feel more adequate (or desirable, in my case, but that's a whole different kettle of fish) and knowledgeable, it just opens up a whole new area for one to feel uncertain and silly about. I would certainly agree with your point that "the idea of "saving yourself" till you find someone you think you're going to spend the rest of your love life with is lovely and romantic and sweet, don't these people worry what may happen if they are not sexually compatible?" Well, I suppose that ignorance is bliss in some ways. As annoyingly worthy as this will make me sound, pretty much every sexual experience I have teaches me something new not only about human nature, but the social and physical aspect to us in a sped up way that simply being around people without asking them to compromise themselves in a way normal interaction doesn't require (like getting naked. Naked men look funny, but then again, we all look funny naked.)Not saying we should all have sex to become better people, but in my incredibly limited experience, sexual incompatibility is rarely just about the sex.

Which is a point which is disappointingly absent from much sex education. Not all sex can be a mind-blowing, live changing event which leaves you too dizzy to walk ten minutes afterwards, but I would argue that one truly loses' one's virginity after your first orgasm rather than when someone penetrates you. I think orgasm certainly is the new experience, new "language" which isn't necessarily experienced before sex.