Like A Virgin?

I'm in the process of reading "Virgin: The Untouched History" by Hanne Blank. I picked up this book because I'm trying to figure out what the virgin's role in society is. Anomalous and awkward, virgins have to discover ways to convince larger society that they are still culturally and theologically significant and therefore relevant. For most people, virginity loses its appeal once one becomes discontent with being viewed as inexperienced and incompetent in an area that heavily saturates our culture. In essence, one becomes overpowered by curiosity and/or pressure, volition is compromised, and deflowering ensues. I can recall that in my pre-adolescent years, many of the older women would make their admonitions by speaking in riddles. They would warn that when I got older, I should always make an effort to "be sweet" and remember that "good girls don't" (when in all actuality good girls do, and they do it with as much frequency as the bad/not-so-sweet girls). When I graduated from high school, my mother presented me with a gold ring, symbolic of purity, and told me to wear it until I could replace it with a wedding ring. I've never been one to back down from a challenge, so I've remained abstinent for the past five years that I've had it. There was something about this whole 'ceremony' of sorts that struck me as odd. My older brother wasn't sporting a purity ring... was he ever given one? Was he ever subjected to the awkwardness of discussing sexuality with a parental figure who made him vow to chastity before marriage?

I came across this article on the blog Something Within and began to wonder why chastity isn't encouraged nearly as much in boys as it is in girls. Is purity not a virtue that is transcendant between the sexes? The article describes the pompous (and rather lame)event of "Abstinence Balls" where a father presents his daughter with a lock and promises that the key will be given to her future husband on their wedding day (check the symbolism). That's creepy, and I'm glad that I was spared such an act of father-daughter bonding. I am familiar that biblically virgins are typified as women who have not married and have thereby not engaged in intercourse. The only chaste men referenced are eunuchs, or those that have been castrated so not as to have sex with the queen. There were even 'virginity checks'; a woman's groom had to present her father with a shroud stained with the blood that is shed upon initial coital contact. I've assumed that the double standards that exist between masculine and feminine virginity were, from a biblical viewpoint, resultant of Eve's decision to eat the forbidden fruit which henceforth implicated all women in various forms of suffering and disadvantage. And, being a Christian who accepts the Bible to be infallible, I go along with it. But given today's context, where one begins to experience ostracism upon remaining a virgin past the age of 21, it appears that the virgin is no longer the revered figure that it once was. In the days of the Bible, it was extremely unlikely that a woman would remain unmarried beyond the age of 20 with some being girls given as young as 12 or 13. It is speculated that at the time of Jesus' birth, Mary was approximately 15 or 16 years old and betrothed to her fiancee Joseph (who wanted to quietly break off the relationship out of fear that her pregnancy would lead people to believe that she had been ruined before marriage). Spinsterhood was also uncommon as late as the 19th century as more people married for subsistence as opposed to the abstract concepts of love and attraction. Nonetheless, today's notion of feminine virginity is a rare concept. Most women are assumed to be experienced to some degree prior to their marriage, and those who aren't are skeptically accepted into relationships out of fear that they're conservative views will place a strain on any attempts at interpersonal passion and connection.

There is a saying that the only men interested in virgin women are those that are too old and too slow to keep up with anything else. I've considered questions such as, "Why are women the only ones expected to maintain an oath of chastity prior to marriage?" and "Is this just an American thing or are all men exempt from the virgin doctrine?" I've noticed that the only ones, globally, that are stoned and considered "ruined" for having premarital or extramarital sex are women. Men are typically admonished not to get anyone pregnant or, as Pa said in The Color Purple, contract the "nasty woman's disease." Where's the accountability for male virginity? The Bible warns against sexual immorality and male prostitution, but the concept of sexual immorality is rather vague and most men aren't prostituting themselves when they choose to sleep with someone that they love. I have several male friends who have told me that they wish there was someone telling them to reserve their virginity for the women that were intended to be their wives. Furthermore, they've often felt that their masculinity was hopelessly attached to their sexuality; being a male virgin was a sign of wimpiness and an inability to appeal to women. As a result, they feel that they have given away something special to women that they have absolutely no feelings for, and to make matters worse, some have had children by these women. For this reason, I've decided to conduct a little more research. Hopefully, by further exploring this dichotomy between male and female virginity, I can come up with more concrete answers to my questions... a weird topic to research, but very enigmatic nonetheless.

PEACE