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Why is virginity embarrassing?


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To assign a purpose to an object supposes that it was created to carry out that task. This may be true if your parents created you specifically so they could have grandchildren. If you have a belief in a higher power you may believe that you were created with the purpose of being able to reproduce. However in a strict biological sense life has no purpose - it exists and carries out functions which may, or may not result in reproduction.

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Yes, purpose implies design or intent, but that is not what I meant. Reproduction is the mechanism through which natural selection occurs. Biological organisms often have an intrinsic "goal" or "directive" of ensuring the proliferation of their individual species, so one could say their "purpose" is to reproduce, which is what I was referring to. I do not mean anything is forcing a bacterium to split, but rather that the environment in which it exists has a threshold for continual existence, limited to those fit to survive. Through time, those more "focused" on reproduction tend to meet this mark. The mayfly would be a good example.

Evolution of course does not have a purpose, as you said, it is an emergent behaviour, in the same way chemistry, or classical physics, or, even possibly, the Standard Model is. Nevertheless, within the framework of evolution, certain processes serve functions, which I referred to as a "purpose." Perhaps this terminology is too anthropocentric, or misleading, but that is a semantic issue.

Because biological organisms evolve through natural selection in their being most efficient in means of ensuring propagation, it is reasonable to assume that organisms which have been "selected" (or more accurately, "filtered" since this word more wholly implies an intentless/non-conscious means of selection) by this process, have some more efficacious characteristics to ensure to a certain degree that this will occur. Most Humans generally have a reproductive drive, the product of competition for our particular niche. When I say that the "purpose" of a human is to produce offspring, I am referring to the fact that we are endowed from birth, most often, with an involuntary drive to create more of us.

EDIT:

A less long-winded way of saying that this that I thought of, is that it is answer to the question of what function something performs within a given system. For example...once could say that and the "purpose" of the W and Z bosons are to mediate the weak force. That's probably not the best wording to use because as mentioned, it implies a W or Z boson "decides" to fulfill that purpose, or that they were set in motion for performing that task. Well, clearly not.

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I think people are just enjoying the semantics a bit too much. Palaiologos has a point, in my opinion. In its simplest form, the purpose of life is to maintain its existence and to do that, one of the main methods usually used is instilling a reproductive drive. Biological entities exist to survive long enough to pass on the genes. Once the organism has multiplied, its main function has been fulfilled.

Humans, however, enjoy the luxury of consciousness. We'd sometimes like to romanticise life so that it wouldn't appear so carnal and simple, because our species has evolved differently in comparison to others. Even so, our species is still generally driven by the same main purpose to reproduce. Do we not have enough Homo Sapiens on this planet as it is, but still people keep reproducing? Individually, some may deviate from the blueprint and betray their biological purpose by choosing not to reproduce. It would be beneficial for all if there were more people who did so.

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I've been told I shouldn't tell people if I haven't had sex before. This is really weird to me. Are people going to actually treat me differently? I mean, will it affect my ability to form friendships, get jobs, and access services if I need? Or will it cause me to have my freedom taken away from me, eg in a jail or mental institution? Because if it doesn't, I don't see how it matters. And it's totally beyond me why someone would refuse to be my friend because I haven't sex or would deny me a job because of that. I know for a fact I won't go to jail for it.

Not that I tend to go around talking about it a lot anyway. I don't see that it's other people's business. I'll tell people I haven't dated before and I don't mind giving my reasons for that (time/energy constraints, not quite "getting" dating, etc) but past that it's like why do you want to know?

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Addicted2Oreos

I've been told I shouldn't tell people if I haven't had sex before. This is really weird to me. Are people going to actually treat me differently? I mean, will it affect my ability to form friendships, get jobs, and access services if I need? Or will it cause me to have my freedom taken away from me, eg in a jail or mental institution? Because if it doesn't, I don't see how it matters. And it's totally beyond me why someone would refuse to be my friend because I haven't sex or would deny me a job because of that. I know for a fact I won't go to jail for it.

Not that I tend to go around talking about it a lot anyway. I don't see that it's other people's business. I'll tell people I haven't dated before and I don't mind giving my reasons for that (time/energy constraints, not quite "getting" dating, etc) but past that it's like why do you want to know?

---

If people have a problem with you being a virgin/not dating, then it's their problem and they are unlikely to be worthwhile friends. It's better to be hated for who you are then loved for who you are not.

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If people have a problem with you being a virgin/not dating, then it's their problem and they are unlikely to be worthwhile friends. It's better to be hated for who you are then loved for who you are not.

That's beside the point, to me. Are people actually going to hate me or not want to be friends? I definitely avoid disclosing certain things to avoid prejudice (and it is my right to do this for my safety, even if you think hatred and a lack of safety is "better") but I never felt that was one of them. So the "keep the lack of sex a secret" stipulation surprised me when I heard it.

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If people have a problem with you being a virgin/not dating, then it's their problem and they are unlikely to be worthwhile friends. It's better to be hated for who you are then loved for who you are not.

That's beside the point, to me. Are people actually going to hate me or not want to be friends? I definitely avoid disclosing certain things to avoid prejudice (and it is my right to do this for my safety, even if you think hatred and a lack of safety is "better") but I never felt that was one of them. So the "keep the lack of sex a secret" stipulation surprised me when I heard it.

I dont think they would hate you. They may assume you are naive. They might hesitate to include you in certain activities in case its too 'adult' for you. These are silly attitudes so no wonder it surprised you :)

I totally don't care if someone thinks I'm naive though. There was another website where I mentioned it on and they thought it was the weirdest thing ever but we just joked about it and if I thought they were being too invasive I said so or changed the subject. I don't think anyone ever went "Well you haven't had sex so your opinion about bailouts is irrelevant" or tried to generalize it to what I was like in general.

I also have a hunch that I don't want in on those "adult" activities anyway.

It is undeniable that most people are embarrassed/ashamed if they have sex relatively infrequently, though. Even though the polls at universities always show that most people have 0-1 sexual partners per year, so most nonmarried people are 1 or less people away from doing what I'm doing on a yearly basis (and likely feel bad about it). I'll never understand this stuff probably.

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I think as I slightly alluded to in another thread, and this is just anecdotal so take it with a grain of salt, but people seem to associate it with some sort of arrogance. I never understood this at all at the time (in High School), but I think I might now. Basically, if you consider that the vast majority of your peers have a sex drive, then for someone not familiar with you, they would likely assume you do too (they probably haven't even heard of asexuality). I guess any sexual who hears you are a virgin would think of you as fighting the same drive or attraction they have to others. Even if you were to explain asexuality, I imagine most would still probably struggle to think outside of the framework of their own psychological compulsions. Anyway, I noticed that many of *my* peers interpreted this as evidence of some sort of extreme superiority complex on my account, because clearly I'd have to really think less of people for that antipathy to outweigh my wanting to have sex. Obviously that's not what you're thinking, but I guess it makes sense. Of course I could be totally off the mark, but that's what it seemed like to me at the time.

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Some people actually are arrogant about not having sex. Like they think they have a "higher calling" whereas other people are just "giving into their base instincts." I don't think this is actually common but the people like this are especially obnoxious.

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Agreed with Tito.

Also part of what palaiologos said, about people assuming everybody else experiences a sex drive. I would expand to say that, in many ways, most people automatically assume everyone else thinks like them and values the same things. They probably are thinking to themselves, "I would be miserable if I weren't having sex!" so they assume others who aren't are also miserable. If someone claims not to be, they figure the person is lying or in denial. It's just really hard for some to understand that some might not WANT to have sex, so they assume the person is struggling.

This goes along with the idea of being embarrassed. For a highly sexual person,or a person whose self-worth is largely based upon sexual desirability, they might think "Geez, I would be embarrassed if I weren't getting any!" without really stopping to realize that not everyone values these things.

Also perhaps why some people think others should keep it a secret, which is absurd. Possibly because they feel embarrassed for you, even though that's stupid. Though I'm not a virgin, I've had people seem embarrassed for me because they assumed I was just too shy or whatever to get a boyfriend. They couldn't fathom the idea that I didn't want one.

Which brings me to another tangent: I am not shy. At all. Yet people say that about me constantly, like it's indisputable fact, and it's because I am not in a relationship. I am not shy AT ALL around guys. WTF.

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They probably mistake disinterest for shyness. Some people say Im quiet. Im not quiet, i just have no interest in talking to those people so i dont make the effort.

Reminds me of a family get-together. Someone said I am much quieter than my mother. True, but, I explained, "I only speak when I have something of interest to say." =0P

But yeah, I'm sure that's it. The only reason I've never been one to aggressively flirt with the boys is because I am totally disinterested. I'm quite likely to strike up a conversation with guys which does not involve flirting, but they ignore that. Again, I think it's that they are interested in relationships so they automatically assume that I am.

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Again, I think it's that they are interested in relationships so they automatically assume that I am.

Someone literally told me that he had been doing this and apologized to me once. "It's such a big part of my life that it's hard for me to understand how it could be different for someone else."

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And I've no doubt that I personally came across as arrogant--because I believe strongly in everything I say...

This is what I was trying to get at, but you worded it better. For some reason, resoluteness in one's personal beliefs is construed as arrogance.

Whenever I answered the impertinent questions of such people, to the effect that I was not interested in experimenting with sex, they had to try to convince me that I would like it, and that really set me off! Never did I ask them to share my likes or dislikes--and here they were presuming to cross-examine me!

Yes! I do not understand this at all! Why do they care? Would the same reaction have been elicited if you didn't like TV, spaghetti, water polo? For the reasons given in my earlier post, I in theory know why they care, but I still don't get it. Beyond that even, I don't understand how anyone, *especially* sexuals, would WANT to know the details of anothers sex life? Would they inquire the details of one's bathroom visits? It is rather interesting nonetheless.

omeone literally told me that he had been doing this and apologized to me once. "It's such a big part of my life that it's hard for me to understand how it could be different for someone else."

It's so weird to think about the dichotomy, because for me, and presumably others here, it's impossible for ME to understand what that entails! I remember in middle school and high school, my peers talking about being "attracted" to others. I could understand some people being more pleasing to the eyes than others, but in my mindset, the same can be said of paintings...and I'm not "attracted" to those. At the time, especially earlier on, I just assumed it was something they all made up to act cool, or simple hyperbole. I suppose this is somewhat akin to explaining what "red" is to someone who is blind from birth. It would be easier for me, to kind of understand what it would be like to have never seen before, than for someone who has concept of the sensation of vision to understand this. Nevertheless, blackness, the way I would imagine blindness (from birth or otherwise) is clearly *not* the same as not having ANY sense of this vision at all. Likewise, I suppose I can abstractly understand what it means to be attracted to another without having any experience with that *feels* like, while a sexual would have much more difficulty understanding what not having attraction is like. I believe this is similar as to how I cannot imagine being illiterate.

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Actually someone mentioned earlier the embarrassment surrounding "not getting any" - I think that's important to consider alongside the stigma of virginity.

Edit: I found a rather telling passage in one of the papers mentioned in the topic on the World Watch board.

Virginia Braun, in her discussion on female genital cosmetic surgery, emphasizes

that sex (particularly heterosexual coital sex) and orgasm are repeated as acontex-

tually good, healthy, and pleasurable and that ‘the pursuit of (more and better)

pleasure is situated as a legitimate, or even obligatory, pursuit for the ‘‘liberated’’

(sexual) subject’ (2005: 414–415). Likewise, it is not enough to simply have sex, but

there is also pressure for the sex to be immensely enjoyable, ending with the prod-

uct of orgasm, or what Steven Seidman has referred to as the ‘new tyranny of

orgasmic pleasure’ (1992). Nicola Gavey articulates that ‘t’s no longer simply the

case that women are expected to have sex with men when they don’t want to, but

within certain parameters they are expected to want it most of the time – and the

problem is they don’t (seem to)’ (2005: 111). And heterosexual sex, in most cases,

continues to revolve around a coital imperative, which ‘constructs the main point of

heterosex as penetration of the vagina by the penis (typically with male ejaculation

inside the vagina)’ (Gavey, 2005: 124), with the designation of all other sexual acts

to the realm of foreplay, a term which aids in the re-emphasis of coital sex as the

‘real deal’ (124). These snippets of our cultural necessity to have sex, most prefer-

ably heterosexually and coitally, are relevant to this discussion of asexuality

because it is against such normative scripts of sexual repetition that pathologies

of non-sex are constructed.

It's in the "Crisis and safety" paper by Ela Przybylo.

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You guys probably understand this better than most Sexuals. Virginity is like sin - it's a meaningless concept that only matters because enough people think it does - the emperor's new clothes of sex.

Semi-graphic details ahead

As eamonn pointed out, most heterosexuals consider all non-coital sex to be "foreplay", and once again, this is bullshit - men tend to orgasm better from coitus, and women more from outercourse, and coitus becomes the norm just because of how ideas around sex tend to be dominated by heterosexual males - and this is usually because most heterosexual males make up for their insecurities by talking too much.

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Yes to that stuff that eamonn quoted.

I always found it so bizarre that only heterosexual coitus is regarded as "real sex." Another thing I find incredibly bizarre is that people still think the presence or absence of a hymen actually matters and some here have actually commented on it like it was a medical issue, like doctors would consider "virginity" a medical issue and would define it as the presence or absence of a hymen. The medical issue is whether or not a person is "sexually active," not whether or not they are a "virgin," which is not a medical concept, but a cultural one, which doesn't make much sense in current times when girls aren't considered to be the property of their fathers to be "given" to their husbands anymore. I can understand the idea of not wanting to be a slut, but that's different than the cult of virginity.

I remember reading an old Dan Savage quote about how he had discovered that some kids who'd been taught abstinence only, etc. decided that only coitus caused you to lose virginity, so they started having anal sex instead. Because, you know, anal sex isn't sex. Just like oral sex and handjobs. [*facepalm*]

So, I'd say the ideas at work are:

-pathologizing not wanting sex

-the idea that lack of sex cannot possibly be by choice

-stigma attached to not "getting any"

-sex as a rite of passage

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Virginity is embarrassing if you're a guy because everyone knows that all men want to shag everything that moves, and so the only possible reason for remaining a virgin is being too undesirable for anyone to touch you with a barge pole.

If you're a woman, virginity might mean being a stuck-up prude. Though actually I think women are more likely to get away with virginity than men, but the opposite is true on the other end of the spectrum. Women who have lots of sex are frequently called sluts and other similar derogatory names, whereas men who have a lot of sex with different partners are highly exalted.

I absolutely agree

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I've been told I shouldn't tell people if I haven't had sex before. This is really weird to me. Are people going to actually treat me differently?

Yes, they will either treat you like a child or as an object of pity. At least that's my experience.

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Some people actually are arrogant about not having sex. Like they think they have a "higher calling" whereas other people are just "giving into their base instincts." I don't think this is actually common but the people like this are especially obnoxious.

I feel ashamed now, that's what my young subconscious used to think, until I got older and accepted everyone experiences things differently.

Like a lot of people said, trick is not to announce it publicly, such as in the case someone's flirting with me *like yesterday*; it makes people want to push you to do it as if it's a gateway to adulthood or "Don't knock it if you don't try it!" It will also make it harder to flick a suitor off your back, since they're a lot more persistent! (less risk healthwise, and they feel like they're doing you a favor).

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I don't find it embarrassing. I think the title of your thread is misleading.

I have certainly had my fair share of men want to take my virginity or want to have sex with me, but I waited for my own reasons.. because it didn't feel right and because I wasn't in a committed relationship. I wanted to be in a relationship with someone before having sex. I also felt a lot of anxiety around my first time, and didn't want it to just be lost on some awkward one-night stand with some guy who didn't give a shit about me. I don't think ANYONE would assume i'm still a virgin or less desirable because of it. If anything, the reactions I got were complete & total shock.

I'm not a virgin anymore, mind you, but I lost it at a relatively "old" age (26.)

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Some people actually are arrogant about not having sex. Like they think they have a "higher calling" whereas other people are just "giving into their base instincts." I don't think this is actually common but the people like this are especially obnoxious.

I feel ashamed now, that's what my young subconscious used to think, until I got older and accepted everyone experiences things differently.

Like a lot of people said, trick is not to announce it publicly, such as in the case someone's flirting with me *like yesterday*; it makes people want to push you to do it as if it's a gateway to adulthood or "Don't knock it if you don't try it!" It will also make it harder to flick a suitor off your back, since they're a lot more persistent! (less risk healthwise, and they feel like they're doing you a favor).

Interesting... I'm female & felt the opposite from men when they found out I was a virgin. It wasn't something they really wanted to take away or viewed as something desirable. If anything, I think they felt intimidated by it and that maybe they didn't deserve to be the one to take it away (even when I wanted them to!) I've had guys dump me because I was a virgin, I think they felt too much pressure or thought that having it meant I'd want to marry them or something, because I was "waiting until the right one", when that wasn't even the case... guys assume a bunch of stupid things about people who are virgins, and a lot of them aren't true.

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Some people actually are arrogant about not having sex. Like they think they have a "higher calling" whereas other people are just "giving into their base instincts." I don't think this is actually common but the people like this are especially obnoxious.

I feel ashamed now, that's what my young subconscious used to think, until I got older and accepted everyone experiences things differently.

Like a lot of people said, trick is not to announce it publicly, such as in the case someone's flirting with me *like yesterday*; it makes people want to push you to do it as if it's a gateway to adulthood or "Don't knock it if you don't try it!" It will also make it harder to flick a suitor off your back, since they're a lot more persistent! (less risk healthwise, and they feel like they're doing you a favor).

Interesting... I'm female & felt the opposite from men when they found out I was a virgin. It wasn't something they really wanted to take away or viewed as something desirable. If anything, I think they felt intimidated by it and that maybe they didn't deserve to be the one to take it away (even when I wanted them to!) I've had guys dump me because I was a virgin, I think they felt too much pressure or thought that having it meant I'd want to marry them or something, because I was "waiting until the right one", when that wasn't even the case... guys assume a bunch of stupid things about people who are virgins, and a lot of them aren't true.

Wow people in your area are very different! Maybe it's because many of the people who tried flirting were hyper high school teenagers eager to find anything or because I have this "leave me alone" demeanor. Thanks for opening my eyes to that, though, there must be a variety of reactions

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Wow people in your area are very different! Maybe it's because many of the people who tried flirting were hyper high school teenagers eager to find anything or because I have this "leave me alone" demeanor. Thanks for opening my eyes to that, though, there must be a variety of reactions

Hey hun.. it's not "people in my area", these reactions to female virgins are pretty common. There was an article about virginity on AskMen.com a while back and a lot of the comments & article had comments like the above (maybe you can find it, if you're interested in reading more about it..)

You're right though - there will def. be some men who are 'challenged' by the thought of a female virgin, but that's likely younger female virgins... like maybe 18-21. Past 21, guys will WONDER why you are still a virgin and think "OMG maybe she's super religious" or "maybe she wants marriage.." or "she'll get too attached, and I only want this to be a fling.."

Things like that enter their minds and they may have some doubting thoughts. I gather you're a bit younger though? If you're a 30 year old female virgin, for instance, I don't think guys are necessarily going to jump to that. They will think "She must be the more serious, committed, conservative type who waited for a reason" not "OMG! This is my prime opportuntiy for sex RIGHT HERR." (The latter reaction would moreso be for a 16-18 year old virgin, for instance.)

These are my thoughts, which I've gathered from personal experience and from reading about the issue quite a bit, along with talking about it with male friends quite a bit.

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If it's the one you proved the point that it's not the area but the age, it posted in quote but not..on the..forum? wat

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If it's the one you proved the point that it's not the area but the age, it posted in quote but not..on the..forum? wat

That's true. It posted in the wrong place... lol. Dunno how that happened!! You are smart. I'll edit it now.

(worked!)

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