Friday, October 06, 2006

More on virginity

Susie Bright on fear-created 30-year-old virgins.

Me, I was a virgin until about 24, and that was definitely not by choice, but more like near-pathological shyness.

(Hehe, just today I was asked to reveal more of the "real me". I don't know if this fits the ticket.) (I don't have a clue what the "real me" is.)

15 comments:

Anonymous said...

In contrast, I was a virgin right up until my wedding night. I believe that a woman's virginity on that night is a gift to her husband. Nothing startling so far. But I also believe the less widely found position that a man's virginity that night is a gift to his firstborn child. Notice that both these notions involve giving up considerable immediate pleasure for a future, for a person who might never exist, but who will mean everything to you if/when they do appear on the scene, so such ideas don't have much following among people whose idea of long-range planning is what kind of trouble to get into next Saturday night. Yes, I have had some regrets. Most of them, though, center around not having had the cojones to talk about these ideas with other guys when it might have made a difference.

Eolake Stobblehouse said...

"And since the British night life revolves around being a drunken slut"

Funny you should mention it. Recently I took a late night stroll. It turned out to be Saturday night. (I have a seven day week, so I don't notice much.) And all the "party" people were out.
There were many pretty girls in very skimpy outfits. And I noticed that even though some were nice to look at, I was not at all interested in any of them.

Anonymous said...

"I believe that a woman's virginity on that night is a gift to her husband."
A valid belief. The gift should be both ways. It's about much more than that anatomical membrane (as it is perceived in much of the world)...
Me, I'd probably replace "husband" with "true love", even without marriage, but for the rest I'm as sick and tired as you of all the hypocrisy and double-standards between men and women.
Incidentally, I'm a Lebanese male. So I speak from first-hand knowledge. Here, the woman is expected to be pure, the man is expected to be seasoned.
If we admit this for one second, pops up THE question : just WHO can all these men become "seasoned" WITH before marriage, hunh?
I know LOTS of examples of young girls who rushed themselves into an early marriage simply because sex was totally out of question otherwise. An, unsurprisingly, they have to assume their choices for the rest of their lives...

The only true regret I have, is that I haven't found yet the woman deserving that gift. But I know she's out there somewhere.

Bram said...
I haven't been a virgin since I was 17.

Did you intend this to be as funny as it sounds? Or do you plan to be a virgin again one day?
;-)

"There were many pretty girls in very skimpy outfits. And I noticed that even though some were nice to look at, I was not at all interested in any of them."
I'm nearly abnormal, according to this country's standards, because that's exactly the way I feel too.
And, I'm not even insisting on my future wife to be a virgin. Just to have given herself only to someone she loved. (In other words, that she don't be a drunken slut.)
I wouldn't kiss, or invite around my house, some stranger I don't know or like. So why on Earth would I do something far more intimate with them? I don't profess this because of God, morality, or anything. Simply because I believe it. And that's the only motive one should have. It's not so much the body I regard as holy, but Love. I don't want to fuck, screw, hump, boink or get laid, I want to make love. For raw sexual pressure, I don't need dubious company. (And I feel this should apply to women too.)

bennettr,
Would you care to explain why/how the MAN's gift (while not the woman's) should be to his firstborn child? A mutual gift of love in a couple seems self-evident, but I don't follow you there. Please, do enlighten us.
:-)

Hannah said...

And how does the staying a virgin until your wedding night tie in with divorce? Hard fact, but unfortunately it's there...

Cliff Prince said...

Virginity is a load of bull. It's just another way men prevent women from having decent lives.

I don't understand how a woman's virginity can be a "gift" to anyone. I certainly don't "want" it -- I don't get to keep it for myself, do I? Maybe a potential partner actually VALUES it, but (in my experience) the only sorts of men who value female virginity have a rather nasty madonna-whore complex, mixed in with some kind of "slut" detector by which they'll FUCK a girl who's hot but then NOT RESPECT her. These hypocritical men don't need to be the basis of anyone's misguided quasi-religious zeal for "purity." Those men will do A and say B at the drop of a hat. Often, their misogyny is mixed in with an odd "old world" view of things, kind of pre-1930s in their outlook about traditional gender roles, except of course when it's to their benefit to prefer modern gender roles instead.

I think women who are fooled into remaining virgins in order to please men like that, will find themselves quite disappointed. Their LACK of virginity would have been an excuse for him not to marry her even though he would be quite willing to have casual sex with her. But their SURPLUS of virginity doesn't make them worth more as a human to him. He doesn't value women as humans at all.

And I REALLY don't understand how a male's virginity has ANYTHING to do with his unborn child. What, his sperm hasn't squirted somewhere else? That mumbo-jumbo is just childish and unrealistic. Pick wha tyou want, but realize that it's based on falsehoods.

I once dated a girl a while, and about six dates in I found out she wanted to remain a virgin until she was married. I was 29, she was 26. She could have mentioned it about six dates earlier! I felt like she had been quite hypocritical with me, getting close emotional support and "luvvy duvvies" at my expense. I had a life to live, she wasn't willing to participate in it, but she was VERY happy taking whatever positive things about me she felt she could experience at zero cost. Her "virgininty" game was just one step in the manipulation process.

If she had fessed up very early in the process, I don't know if I would have been willing to date her or not. But I would have respected her a lot more than I did after she (effectively) lied to me about her intentions in order to take advantage of me.

Also, I have deflowered a few virgins. Worst sexual experience of my life. And what ensues -- their utter inability to participate in sexuality because they have no experience -- convinces me categorically that the worst thing that could possibly happen to me on my wedding night, would be that I find out my spouse is a virgin. Sexual compatibility is a large portion of initial attraction, and is something that a partnership will rely on for quite some time to cement a nascent bond. If I end up marrying a virgin, I'll certainly divorce her before the honeymoon.

Here's something I saw on the Susie Bright blog:

I waited because I had to. All the hot / cool chicks I wanted to bed wouldn't have me, although they WERE willing to hug me, hold me, tell me how sad they were about Fred or Jeff having broken up with them, assure me that I was the most important and meaningful person in their lives, and then go date and have sex with another Jeff or Fred.

I just didn't get, that to make friends, you have to win them and influence people, which still (twenty years later) feels more like Machiavellian manipulation than like living a good life. I thought getting laid had something to do with being a decent person, and I thought that when women were saying what women want, then if I could provide what they said they wanted, I'd perhaps be learning to provide what women want.

It's all really quite simple. These virgin girls are a "phenomenon" (while the boys are ignored) because females are assumed to "have power" or "have control." Girls who end up virgins at 28 are that way because they're stupid about having a good life for themselves. Boys who end up virgins at 28, on the other hand, are that way NOT because of their own "choice" but because the girls they've chosen are manipulative lying cunts.

Simple. Maybe the boys should choose different girls. Or maybe we're doing a dreadful job of teaching our young women to EITHER have good lives, OR treat young men decently.

And maybe the two go hand in hand.


An angry young man. But his experience parallels mine to a great extent. The "hint" of sexuality, and the way that a young man can be controlled by it, is something that young women seem to be BORN understanding. There's also this intrinsic belief that withholding gratification somehow makes the eventual gratification better. As though humans WANT to be "teased."

Teasing is only fine if (a) eventual pleasing does take place, so the tease is not hypocritical or false and (b) it takes place in a context of plenty rather than scarcity. I don't mind a friend at a pub saying he'll get me a drink, then making a joke of handing me an empty pint glass for a laugh. But if I'm dying of thirst and he plays that trick? He's no longer my friend.

Women act too often like the latter example. I don't want to date someone who isn't my friend. So why would it be so important to her to ruin the friendship and make me so angry before we've even gotten started at bonding?

Anonymous said...

Final,
I find very interesting the way you bash at hypocrit macho bigots.
I mean, if somebody was mistaking your previous comments about women (not that I noticed any hint of that), this should make them rectify their opinion.

The two of us don't have the same conceptions, but I see in you a very likeable honesty.

"Sexual compatibility is a large portion of initial attraction"
Well it DEFINITELY is a large portion of a lasting relationship, with or without marriage.
Although I don't feel the same as those who want to live together -sometimes their whole lives- without getting married, I certainly believe sincere love doesn't need the Chuch's seal of approval. Or anybody else's for that matter, between mature consenting adults.

"Also, I have deflowered a few virgins. Worst sexual experience of my life."
You're REALLY not the typical MCP neanderthal! :-)
I can easily imagine how having zero previous experience and 100% of your apprehensions might ruin it all. Even on a wedding night. I would have no problems whatsoever with being intimate before marriage. Many times. All that's required in my mind is sincerity.
I see only ONE advantage to virginity, and that's protection against STDs. In a perfectly faithful, monogamous society. But it's a very weak argument. First, a "seal of freshness" on just the women is a curse in disguise, as I mentioned earlier about "real" men being "seasoned". And then, the fixation on this accursed anatomical membrane has led to a huge, and terrifying, amount of hypocrisy that ruins the whole idea. I mean, all the "substitutes" that Americans today consider as not being "actual sex". Oral sex. Sodomy. No penetration but everything else, including contact of mucous membranes with body fluids.

I prefer the way Amazonian tribes act. A virgin girl is taboo. Cannot be touched, EVER. But at the age of 4, they are de-virginized (by a matriarch) with a kind of wooden dildo. After that, they pose no problem should they, say, participate in a religious ceremony. THEY consider that a woman's virginity is a problem that should be eliminated as soon as the child is old enough. Marrying a virgin is unthinkable for them.
I wish all hymens were eliminated from the muslim world!!! (If only the Amazonian custom could REPLACE male circumcision...)

"If I end up marrying a virgin, I'll certainly divorce her before the honeymoon."
Try before you buy, eh? :-)
It would make a lot of sense, to impose verifying a couple's sexual compatibility BEFORE marrying them. In a perfect world...

"The "hint" of sexuality, and the way that a young man can be controlled by it, is something that young women seem to be BORN understanding."
Well, maybe the sad fact is, after centuries of women having no control over their lives, things have gone head-first into the opposite excess. Remember, outside the "Western World", things are very much as they were in 1800.
I have hope that with time (probably several more decades), things will reach a sensible equilibrium. Unless the religious extremists keep polarizing all countries into two extremes, with the moderate getting crushed between the hammer and the anvil.

"Women act too often like the latter example."
When I was 7, a "big" student at school once gave me a candy. Once. But after that, he'd ask me if I wanted a candy, and I'd say yes, and all he'd give me was an obscene gesture. Several times. I understood. I understood everything. His dumb, self-content laughter was clue enough.
I met him again years later, once I became an adult. He greeted me in a friendly manner. I didn't even speak a word to him, acted like he didn't exist. If he wanted to be forgiven, he should have thought about it 15 years earlier. ):-P
If you want to be forgiven, don't ever offend a child. They remember.

Anonymous said...

I understand to a degree with what Final Identity is saying. (Though his words were a bit harsh at times.)
Too many females use "sex" as a weapon of torture meaning that if you don't do this or that for them they will not delivery the goodies.
Often they CONTROL men with the fact that they have what men want. But truthfully it hurts emotionally for some men to be rejected simply because the women have the perception that if they give in they are sluts.
I think love and friendship is often the reason women will share themselves with a man and I respect that. But teasing is a cruel weapon if not followed through.
But some women are taught that sex is evil in itself. Difficult situations in life are they not?
Sometimes I think that the real CEO's in this world are the women and the men are just the figureheads behind the podiums.
But for me there's nothing in this whole wide world that's worse than being alone...........

Anonymous said...

If he wanted to be forgiven, he should have thought about it 15 years earlier. ):-P
If you want to be forgiven, don't ever offend a child. They remember.

To Pascal:
That's truly tragic to hang onto that kind of hurt. No offense but it's not healthy. I was abused as a child myself (so horrifying i won't go into details) but I had to come to a point in my life where I needed to forgive to be realeased from my prison of shame and humiliation.
I wished it had never happened but it did by someone I loved very dearly and still do. (It wasn't sexual please understand but extremely violent.)
As my saviour Jesus Christ forgave me of my sins I needed to forgive others and ask for forgiveness. Yes, I still recall the living nightmares and the bloody stains yet must I also remind myself that we are all human and make grave mistakes.
I hope one day you can let go as well? Take care.

Anonymous said...

Terry,
None taken. I might have been a bit unclear : I didn't hang onto it. In fact, I forgot all about it until I saw that guy again. But then, I remembered he had been nothing but an a-hole and did nothing to deserve friendliness. The truth is, I felt guilty about acting like that. But I also felt I had to do it, be it only to teach him a lesson, that he had no reason to act like we were old buddies as he pretended. We were not.
Maybe then, he'll think twice before doing something like that again, and another kid will be spared some nastiness because I din't pretend it "was nothing".
I'm not really keeping any resentment, like you say it's not healthy. I just felt that greeting him back would have been naive from my part once too much. He's just a sorry loser, after all. I'd rather be busy loving the ones who deserve it.
:-)

You have my sincere sympathies for your ordeal. Nearly happened to me once, but I got lucky (and reacted smartly too, I guess, but mainly it was luck). For all my beliefs about being civilized, should anyone abuse a child I care about, I swear I don't know what I'd do. Sometimes I feel I'd probably want to chop off their "crime weapon" and force them to swallow it whole. For starters!
(I haven't meditated on what I'd do afterwards. Depends whether I'd have been arrested/commited or not yet, I guess.)
In a way, just thinking of such a thing gives me the first warning signs of temporary insanity, your Honor. "Lead us not into temptation, because we fear we might succumb!"

More serenely, I've given a lot of thought to such dramas when I hear of them on TV. You need to forgive, indeed. (I'm not really angry at that guy anymore! He's not worth it.) But you forgive for yourself, for your soul, to get rid of the hate. To save yourself from the prison of those horrible moments, to go on living, and to not let the Ugliness win forever. Forgiving doesn't imply excusing, or finding justifications. You can't provide absolution to the perpetrator by forgiving, he's still guilty.
Let's take the example of the person that hurt you. You need to forgive, no discussion about that. But if he(?) showed up one day in your life, and appeared totally unrepentant, if he felt he had done nothing wrong (or even, that he had "given you a good time"), and wouldn't mind doing it again, and perhaps is still doing it to somebody?...
It's no reason for hate. Hate hurts your own soul. But you can't act with him as if all was just okay and fine and had always been. Not unless HE understands, too. And regrets!

This is why, on another thread, I stand against revenge, but all for justice. In the hypothetical case I mentioned above, I know should I go berzerk, I'd be glad (after I got my senses back) if someone has prevented me from soiling my own soul, from becoming a barbarian too. I know what I'd probably WANT to do, but let's just neutralize the bastard for the rest of his life, and let God judge him after that, in all fairness. This is how I believe in justice. There's only so much we humans can hope to accomplish.

Damn! I'm still amazed, it seems such things are SO MUCH more frequent than I ever imagined. Could've happened to me. The mother of a good friend told me it happened to her, and she undertook long therapy before she dared risk having children of her own. Things like that make me boil inside, with steam coming out of the ears!
Although I already know the answer, I keep asking myself again and again, "why does God let all this happen?". I know the answer, this is why I don't become an atheist, but still, accepting some things feels beyond the capabilities of mere humans like myself.
Perhaps we're not meant to accept. Perhaps it is just that drive, adequately oriented, that pushes us to strive toward equity and justice, and to protect the weak. Our role doesn't need to have anything in common with God the Creator. A computer doesn't design computers, it just calculates, and Someone Above worries about the designing.

I wholeheartedly wish you to heal, Terry. I know it's hard. But I also feel you can do it, that you have in you what it takes. You take care too. (Thumbs up.)

Cliff Prince said...

Pascal:

Where'd you (or somebody else) ever get that I was misogynist?

(You say, "I find very interesting the way you bash at hypocrit macho bigots.
I mean, if somebody was mistaking your previous comments about women (not that I noticed any hint of that), this should make them rectify their opinion.")

I'm not sure I follow the he-said that she-said that I-said ...

Anonymous said...

Sorry, Final.
I can be a bit of a red herring sometimes. What I meant to say was that, from experience, I know your justified rant on teasing women was bound to get you labeled as a misogynist by some hasty judgers.

But it would seem the general atmosphere of this blog tends to drive such people away. :-)

Okay? You got what I said that you didn't say and that nobody really said that you actually said, but some day they might have said that you said so?
(Or something!) :-D

Great Wotan, I have NO idea what I've just written there!

Cliff Prince said...

Wow, if hoping that women would give up on "restraining themselves" (maintaining virginity) to please men, and instead feel free to HAVE A BETTER LIFE regardless of pleasing some backwards males, is a stance that can get me labeled misogynist ...

then I'm confused.

Anonymous said...

Final,
Here's an example of confusion I'm sure you can relate to, and maybe will help you get my point.

I once introduced myself to my classmates in a new University (during a recess), saying I was famous for being the most modest person in the world. "There are proverbs about my modesty", I said with a smile.
Well, somebody actually retorted bitterly : "I've never met anyone so FULL of himself as you!"

As for those capable of understanding this could ONLY be a joke, however, they became excellent friends! :-)

So, I just meant there will always be people ready to judge you based not on what you meant, but on what they expect "somebody like you" to mean.

I also meant that I found your balanced and sensible opinions, and your not fearing to openly express them all, interesting.

Mr Perfectly Modest.

Cliff Prince said...

I'm more modest than you. :(

Anonymous said...

"I'm more modest than you."
Well, perfection is a matter of perspective.

But is YOUR modesty as universally recognized as mine? Hunh? Hunh?
Ah, didn't think so. ;-)